,      The  Anglican  Reformation: 

0^1  or 

M\  The   Church  of  ii^ngland 

m  V  but 

Half  Reformed. 


/f 


^.Ov  I'o  1954 
^BX   8913    .A3    1843 


The  Anglican  reformation:  oi 
The  Church  of  England  but 


'  /^  i 

I  niONjaiaiHdwvdJ 
i    INnOWOlOHd  . 


,^5-3 


.NJ 


THE 


NOV  23  1927 


'mi 


ANGLICAN   EEFORMATION: 


OK 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND 


BUT 


HALF  EEFORMED 


ORIGINALLY  PUBLISHED  IN    THE  EDINBURGH  PRESBYTERIAN  REVIEW 
JANUARY,  1813. 


PHILADELPHIA : 
PRESBYTERIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION. 


THE 


ANGLICAN  EEFORMATION 


The  origin  of  Puritan  nonconformity,*  its  ample  warrant, 
and  complete  justification,  will  be  found  in  the  charactei 
and  proceedings  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  the  principles  on  which 
the  Anglican  Church  was  at  first  based,  and  the  means  by 
which  it  was  finally  established. 

Elizabeth  was  one  of  those  persons  whose  character  it  is 
difficult  to  portray,  because  it  consisted  of  elements  appa- 
rently irreconcilable.  She  possessed  the  peculiar  character- 
istics of  both  sexes  in  almost  equal  proportions.  She  had 
all  the  masculine  energy  and  enlarged  capacity  of  a  strong- 
minded  man,  with  all  the  caprice,  vanity,  and  obstinacy  of 
a  weak-minded  woman  ;  while  the  circumstances  in  which 
.she  was  placed  had  a  direct  tendency  to  develope  and  mature 
all  the  elements  of  her  character.  She  was  suspicious  by 
nature,  by  education,  and  by  necessity,  and  despotic  by 
temperament,  by  habit,  and  by  policy.  Thoroughly  and 
intensely  selfish,  she  made  all  the  means  within  her  reach 
minister  to  her  own  interests ;  utterly  insensible  to  the 
miseries  she  might  occasion  to  the  instruments  of  her  will,. 
or  the  objects  of  her  policy. f     Impatient  of  contradiction, 

*  Puritans  and  nonconfornnists  were,  at  first,  the  common  titles 
of  those  who  were  subsequently  called  Presbyterians,  while 
Brownites,  sectaries,  and  separatists,  were  the  ordinary  appella- 
tions of  those  who  are  now  called  Independents.  See  Pierce's 
Vindication  of  the  Dissenters,  pp.  147,  189,  205,  206,  213,  215, 
223.  Hanbury's  Eccl.  Memorials  of  Independents,  i.  3,  5,  et 
passim. 

f  "My  good  old  mistress,"  says  Sir  Francis   Bacon   to  King 

James,  in  1612,  "was  wont  to  call  me  her  watch  candle,  because 

it  pleased  her  to  say  I  did  continually  burn;  and  yet  she  suffered 

me  to  waste  almost  to  nothing."     (Wordsworth  Eccl.  Biog.  iv. 

3  7 


4  THE    ANGLICAN    REFOR^IATION. 

not  less  from  the  strong  than  the  weak  points  of  her  char- 
acter, she  quelled,  with  equal  imperiousness,  all  opposition 
to  her  will,  and  crushed  a  refractory  spirit  in  prelates,  par- 
liaments, and  privy  council,  in  Puritans,  Papists,  anG 
populace,  with  as  iron  a  rigour  as  was  ever  displayed  by 
Henry  VIII. 

It  was  only  by  the  favourable  circumstances  in  which 
she  was  placed,  and  by  the  dexterity  with  which  she  regu- 
lated her  personal  deportment,  as  well  as  her  general  policy, 
tiiat  such  a  character,  which  could  conciliate  no  love, 
enkindle  no  gratitude,  and  excite  no  sympathy,  could 
inspire  those  feelings  of  national  homage  of  which  we  know 
she  was  the  object.  Her  life,  to  many  of  her  Protestant 
subjects,  appeared  the  only  barrier  against  the  return  of 
Popery  and  persecution  ;  and  therefore,  for  their  own  pro- 
tection, they  not  only  tolerated  the  strong  measures  of  her 
government,  but  admired  her  prudence,  and  promoted  her 
plans.  Parsimonious  to  an  extreme  in  granting  salaries 
or  pensions  to  her  servants  from  the  royal  treasures,  she 
was  munificent  in  rewarding,  if  not  her  ministers,  at  least 
her  minions,  by  donations  from  the  estates  of  the  Church  ; 
and  thus  she  secured  the  applause  of  those — and  they  are 
always  a  numerous  party — who  look  more  to  the  value 
of  the  gift,  than  the  legitimacy  of  the  source  whence  it  is 
drawn.  Theatrical,  yet  imposing,  in  her  carriage ;  mag- 
nificent, though  coarse  in  her  tastes;  thoroughly  English 
in  her  feelings,  and  successful  in  her  enterprises,  she  won 
and  retained  the  admiration  of  those  (always  the  mass  in 
every  nation)  who  are  impressed  only  through  their  senses, 
judge  merely  by  results,  and  admire  power  and  splendour, 
without  looking  too  curiously  into  the  source  whence 
the  one  is  derived,  or  the  objects  to  which  the  other  is 
directed.  It  was  part  of  her  policy  not  to  demand  taxes 
from  her  parliaments,  lest  they  might  attempt  to  canvass 
her  measures,  and  control  her  proceedings  ;*  while  from 
the    very    same    policy    she    directed    the    most    judicious 

70,  n.)  She  kept  Sir  Francis  Walsingham  at  Paris,  because  she 
found  him  serviceable  to  her  purposes,  till  his  health  was  com- 
pletely shattered,  and  his  fortune  utterly  impoverished  ;  nor  could 
all  his  petitions  and  representations  to  herself  and  her  council, 
obtain  either  an  accession  to  his  income,  a  respite  to  his  labours, 
or  a  recall  from  his  embassy.  See  Sirype's  Annals,  lii.  pp.  339, 
340. 

*  Bishop  Short's  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. 2d  edit.  Sect.  429,  467. 
8 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  O 

efforts  to  enlarge  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  kingdom ; 
and  all  this  had,  of  course,  the  very  strongest  tendency  to 
increase  her  general  popularity.  It  must  have  been  from 
sources  such  as  these  that  so  much  of  admiration  was 
lavished  upon  one  who  never  uttered  one  amiable  sentiment, 
and  never  performed  one  generous  deed. 

It  is  not  less  difficult  to  estimate  Elizabeth's  religious 
character,  than  to  do  justice  to  her  personal  and  political 
life.  During  her  sister's  reign,  she  regularly  attended  con- 
fession and  mass,  and  conformed  to  all  the  ritual  observ- 
ances of  Popery.*  Nor  was  this  merely  from  policy,  or 
from  a  desire  to  escape  persecution  from  that  ferocious 
bigot,  who  was  well  known  to  cherish  no  sisterly  regard 
towards  her ;  for  after  her  accession  to  the  throne,  she 
continued  to  pray  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  and,  as  we  shall 
see,  maintained  many  of  the  peculiar  doctrines  of  Roman- 
ism. She  believed  in  the  real  presence,  which,  as  then 
understood,  was  synonymous  with  transubstantiation,f 
publicly  censured  a  preacher,  who  preached  against  it  in 
her  presence,  and  praised  another  who  preached  in  its 
favour.  The  people,  in  the  sudden  ebullition  of  their  joy, 
at  what  they  conceived  the  downfall  of  Romanism,  pulled 
down  the  rood  lofts,  broke  in  pieces  altars  and  images 
and  burnt  up  the  pictures  and  crucifixes,  which,  in  the 
days  of  their  ignorance,  they  had  worshipped.:]:  Elizabeth, 
however,  indignant  at  such  sacrilege,  ordered  these  appen- 
dages of  idolatry  to  be  restored  ;  and  it  was  only  after  the 
most  strenuous  exertions  of  her  prelates  and  counsellors, 
she   could    be  induced   to   yield   to   their   removal. §      But 


»  Strype's  Annals,  i.  2.         '    f  Ibid.  2,  3.  +  Ibid.  260-2. 

§  Jbid.  237,  241.  There  is  a  singular  letter  from  Jewell  tc 
Peter  Martyr.  (Burnet's  Hist.  Ref.  Records,  Bk.  vi.  No,  60,)  dated 
4th  Feb.  1560,  beginning,  "0  my  father,  what  shall  I  write  thee?" 
in  which  he  says,  "That  controversy  about  crosses  (in  Churches) 
is  now  hot  amotigst  us.  You  can  scarcely  believe  in  so  silly  a 
matter,  how  men,  who  seemed  rational,  play  the  fool.  Of  these 
the  only  one  you  know  is  Cox.  To-morrow  a  disputation  is 
appointed  to  take  place  upon  this  matter.  Some  members  of  par- 
liament are  chosen  arbitrators.  The  disputants  are.  in  favour  of 
crosses,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  (Parker)  and  Cox;  against 
them  Grindal  (Bishop  of  London)  and  myself.  The  result  lies  at 
the  mercy  of  our  judges.  However,  I  laugh  when  I  think  with 
what,  and  how  grave  and  solid  arguments  they  shall  defend  their 
paltry  crosses.  I  shall  write  you  the  result,  however  it  may  go. 
At  present  the  cause  is  in  dependence.  However,  so  far  as  I  can 
divine,  this  is  the  last  letter  you  shall  receive  from  me  as  a  bishop, 
1*  9 


0  THE    ANGLICAN    REFOR3IATION. 

although  she  gave  a  reluctant  assent  to  have  them  removed 
from  the  churches,  she  still  retained  a  crucifix,  with  tapers 
burning  before  it,  upon  the  altar  in  her  own  private  chapel. 
Against  this  open  idolatry,  all  her  prelates,  not  even  Cox 
excepted,  remonstrated  in  a  style  of  very  unusual  vehe- 
mence ;  and  in  terms  the  most  obsequious,  yet  firm,  they 
begged  leave  to  decline  officiating  in  her  majesty's  chapel 
until  the  abomination  was  removed.  For  the  moment  she 
seems  to  have  given  way  to  the  storm.  But  she  soon 
recovered  her  obstinate  determination  in  favour  of  her  cru- 
cifix and  lighted  tapers, — restored  them  to  their  former 
plage  upon  the  altar,*  and  there  they  remained  at  least  as 
late  as  1572. f  Nor  were  these  badges  of  idolatry  retained 
merely  as  ornaments.  Strype  informs  us  distinctly,  that 
"  she  and  her  nobles  used  to  give  honour  to  them.":{:  Nor 
could  it  be  any  ambiguous  manifestation  of  popery  and 
idolatry,  which  could  extract  from  Cox  that  long  and  urgent 
declinature  to  officiate  in  her  chapel,  in  which  he  says,  "  I 
most  humbly  sue  unto  your  godly  zeal,  prostrate  and  with 
wet  eyes,  that  ye  will  vouchsafe  to  peruse  the  considera- 
tions which  move  me,  that  I  dare  not  minister  in  your 
grace's  chapel,  the  lights  and  cross  remaining.§ 

But  although  Elizabeth  was  thus  obstinate  in  favour  of 
these  "  dregs  of  Popery,"  and  "  relics  of  the  Amorities,"  as 
Jewell  termed  them,  she  had  not  even  the  semblance  of  per- 
sonal religion.  Those  members  of  the  Church  of  England 
who  are  favourable  to  Protestantism,  and  yet  feel  that  their 
Church  is  identified  with  the  Church  of  Elizabeth,  may,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  be  expected  to  portray  her  both  as  Pro- 


for  the  matter  is  come  to  that  pass,  that  we  must  either  take  back 
those  crosses  of  silver  and  pewter,  which  we  have  broken,  or 
resipjn  our  bishopricks." 

*  In  1570.     Sirype's  Parker,  ii.  35,  36. 

■\  Strype,  speaking  of  the  year  1565,  says,  "The  queen  still,  to 
this  year,  kept  the  crucifix  in  her  chapel."  Annals,  i.  ii.  198. 
Again,  "I  find  the  queen's  chapel  stood  m  sfatii  quo  seven  years 
after."  Ibid.  200.  Cartwright  also  mentions  the  fact  in  his  "Ad- 
monition to  Parliament,"  published  in  1570.  Parker  exerted  !iim- 
self  strenuously,  but  in  vain,  against  this  nuisance.  Strype's 
Parker,  i.  92.  The  encouragement  which  this  attachment  of  the 
queen  to  some  of  the  grossest  errors  of  their  system  gave  the 
papists,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  that  a  popish  priest,  in 
1564,  dedicated  to  her  a  work  in  defence  of  the  crucifix  being 
retained  and  worshipped  as  before.     See  Strype's  An.  i.  260-2. 

i  Strype's  An.  i.  259,  260. 

§  Strype's  Aa.  i.  360,  and  Ap.  Rec.  No.  22. 
10 


THE    AJfGLICAN    REFOKMATION.  7 

testant  and  pious ;  and  this  has  been  done  to  an  extent 
which,  in  our  mind,  has  rendered  every  history  of  Eliza- 
beth, by  members  of  the  Anglican  Church,  altogether 
unworthy  of  credit,  except  simply  when  they  state  facts, 
and  give  their  authority  for  them.  Even  Strype,  so  favour- 
ably distinguished  for  veracity  and  candour,  exerts  himself 
to  write  a  panegyric  on  Elizabeth,  although  the  facts  which 
he  is  too  honest  to  conceal,  jar  oddly  enough  with  his 
praises ;  and  although  also,  occasional  expressions  drop 
unguardedly  from  his  pen,  which  show  how  dissatisfied  he 
was  with  the  personal  character  and  religion  of  that  queen. 

"And,  indeed,"  he  says,  speaking  of  her  religious  char- 
acter at  her  accession,  "  what  to  think  of  the  queen  at  this 
time  as  to  her  religion,  one  might  hesitate  somewhat."  * 
She  seldom  or  never  attended  Church  except  during  Lent, 
(which  she  observed,  and  compelled  others  to  observe,  with 
all  the  formality  of  Rome,)  when  the  best  pulpit  orators 
from  all  parts  of  England  were  summoned  up  to  preach 
before  her.f  She,  indeed,  held  the  preaching  of  the  gospel 
not  only  in  contempt,  but  in  something  bordering  upon  de- 
testation, and  wished  that  all  her  subjects  should  follow  her 
own  example  in  absenting  themselves  from  hearing  sermons. 
While  nine  parishes  out  of  every  ten  throughout  the  king- 
dom were  destitute  of  a  preaching  ministry,  she  commanded 
Grindal,  in  1576,  to  diminish  still  further  the  number  of 
preachers,  declaring  that  three  or  four  were  sufficient  for  a 
whole  county — that,  preaching  did  more  harm  than  good, 
and  that,  consequently,  "  it  was  good  for  the  Church  to  have 
few  preachers.":]:  And  because  he  would  not  obey,  sup- 
press "  the  prophesyings,"  and  lessen  the  number  of  preach- 
ers, she  suspended  him  from  his  functions,  sequestered  his 
revenues,  and  confined  him  a  prisoner  to  his  own  house, 
and  it  was  with  some  difficulty  she  was  restrained  from 
proceeding  further  against  him.  Grindal's  firmness,  how- 
ever, under  God,  saved  England  ;  for  had  he  yielded  to  her 
anti-christian  tyranny,  it  is  easy  to  perceive  what  the  result 
must  have  been  upon  the  moral  and  spiritual  condition  of 
the  kingdom. 

Nor  were  her  morals  more  eminent  than  her  piety.  With- 
out  giving  more  attention  than  they  deserve  to  the  scandal- 
ous revelations  of  Lingard,  or  to  the  rumours  which  have 

*  Annals,  i.  2.  -j-  Strype's  Parker,  i.  40' 

^  Strype's  Grindal,  pp.  328,  329,  and  Appendix  B.  ii.  No.  d 
which  we  recommend  to  our  readers  to  read  throughout. 

11 


8  THE    ANGLICAN    RKFORMATION. 

descended  to  our  own  time  in  secret  memoirs,  in  MSS.,  and 
by  traditions,  it  is  impossible  to  question  that  the  "  virgin 
queen"  hardly  deserved  the  epithet  of  which  she  was  so 
ambitious.*  She  indulged  freely  in  the  pleasures  of  the 
table.  During  her  annual  "  progresses,"  her  prelates  and 
nobles,  aware  of  her  taste  for  magnificent  entertainments, 
rivalled  one  another  in  ministering  to  her  gratification. 
After  her  return  from  these  more  than  oriental  fetes,  she 
was  generally  indisposed,  nature  exacting  her  usual  tribute, 
not  less  from  the  queen,  than  from  more  plebeian  gour- 
mands.t  She  swore  most  profanely,  not  only  in  her  con- 
versation, but  also  in  her  letters,  and  that  not  only  to  her 
profane  men,  but  even  to  her  prelates. | 

As  Elizabeth  did  not  often  attend  church,  she  had  the 
more  time  to  desecrate  the  Sabbath;  and  while  the  Puritans 
were  persecuted  for  not  honouring  saints'  days,  she,  her 
nobles  and  her  prelates,  profaned  the  day  of  the  Lord.  In 
one  of  her  "  progresses,"  in  1575,  she  spent  three  weeks  at 

»  Leicester,  in  a  private  letter  to  Walsingham,  while  ambassa- 
dor at  Pans,  speaking  of  a  mysterious  iUness,  by  which  she  was 
suddenly  seized,  says,  "That,  indeed,  she  had  been  troubled  with 
a  spice  or  show  of  the  mother^  And  although  he  says  that,  "  in- 
deed, it  was  not  so,"  he  was  too  good  a  courtier,  as  well  as  too 
personally  implicated,  to  be  a  trustworthy  witness.  Strype's  An. 
ii!.  319. 

f  Thus,  in  1571,  after  her  return  from  one  of  these  "  progresses," 
"she  was  taken  suddenly  sick  at  her  stomach,  and  as  suddenly 
relieved  by  a  vomit."     Strype's  An.  iii.  175." 

\  Sir  John  Harrington,  giving  a  description  of  an  interview  he 
bad  with  her  in  1601,  a  year  or  two  before  her  death,  says,  "She 
swears  much  at  those  that  cause  her  griefs  in  such  wise,  to  the 
no  small  discomfiture  of  all  about  her."  Nugae  Antiquae.,  i.  319. 
We  owe  the  following  anecdote  to  the  same  amusing  gossip.  Cux 
of  Ely  having  refused  to  alienate  some  of  the  best  houses  and 
manors  of  his  see  to  some  of  her  courtiers,  notwithstanding  of  a 
personal  command  from  the  queen,  received  from  the  indignant 
Elizabeth  the  following  characteristic  epistle.  "Proud  prelate, 
you  know  what  you  were  before  I  made  you  what  you  are  ;  if  you 
do  not  immediately  comply  with  my  request,  by  G— d,  I  will  un- 
frock you.  Elizabeth."  However  ludicrous  to  us,  such  a  man- 
date must  have  been  anything  but  laughable  to  the  poor  bishop  of 
Ely.  With  a  pertinacity,  however,  which  would  have  been  sub- 
lime, had  it  been  displayed  in  a  better  cause.  Cox  preserved  to 
the  last  the  revenues  of  his  see.  After  his  death,  however,  Eliza- 
beth was  revenged.  She  kept  the  diocese  vacant  for  eighteen 
years,  (as  she  kept  Oxford  for  twenty-two  years,)  and  before  a 
succession  was  appointed,  she  stripped  it  so  bare,  that  from  hav- 
ing beer,  ^ne  of  the  richest,  it  is  now  one  of  the  poorest  dioceses 
'n  England. 
12 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  9 

^enilworth,  one  of  the  seats  of  her  favourite,  the  Earl  of 
Leicester.  A  contemporary  chronicler  gives  the  following 
account  of  the  manner  in  which  two  of  the  Sabbaths  spent 
ihere  were  desecrated.  In  the  forenoon  she  went  to  the 
parish  church.  But  "the  afternoon"  was  spent  "in  excel- 
lent music  of  sundry  sweet  instruments,  and  in  dancing  of 
lords  and  ladies,  and  other  worshipful  degrees,  with  lively 
agility  and  commendable  grace.  At  night,  late  after  a  warn- 
ing or  two,"  such  as  Jupiter's  respects  to  the  queen  and 
other  heathen  masques  and  mummeries,  there  "  were  blazes 
of  burning  darts  flying  to  and  fro,  beams  of  stars,  coruscant 
streams,  and  hail  of  fiery  sparks,  lightning  of  wild-fire,  in 
water  and  land,  flight  and  shot  of  thunder-bolts — all  with 
continuance,  terror  and  vehemence,  as  though  the  heavens 
thundered,  the  water  scourged,  and  the  earth  shook.  This 
lasted  till  after  midnight."  Next  Sabbath  the  same  scene 
was  repeated  with  sundry  alterations.  But,  in  addition, 
"  this,  by  the  kalendar,"  being  "  St.  Kenelme's  day,"  the 
genius  or  tutelary  god  of  the  place,  there  "  was  a  solemn 
country  bridal,  with  running  at  quintal,  in  honour  of  this 
Kenilworth  Castle,  and  of  God  and  St.  Kenelme  !"*  When 
we  bear  in  mind  the  manner  in  which  the  Sabbath  has  been 
desecrated  in  England  down  from  the  Reformation,  by 
princes,  peers,  and  prelates,  by  the  "  Book  of  Sports,"  by  acts 
of  parliament  and  convocation,  and  that  the  only  friends 

*  Apud  Strype's  An.  ii.  i.  584,  585.  It  may  be  said  in  palliation 
of  Elizabeth's  desecration  of  the  Sabbath,  tliat  she  only  followed 
the  exannple  set  before  her  by  the  primate  of  all  England.  Parker 
having  finished  a  princely  dining  hall  in  his  palace  at  Canterbury, 
in  1565,  gave  several  magnificent  entertainments  there.  "The 
first,"  says  his  biographer,  "  was  at  Whitsuntide,  and  lasted  three 
days,  that  is,  Sunday,  Monday,  and  Tuesday."  ..."  His  second 
feast  was  on  Trinity  Sunday,  following.  .  .  .  The  hall  was  set 
forth  with  much  plate  of  silver  and  gold,  adorned  with  rich  tapes- 
try of  Flanders.  .  .  .  There  were  dainties  of  all  sorts,  both  meats 
and  drinks,  and  in  jrreat  plent}',  and  all  things  served  in  excellent 
order  by  none  but  the  archbishop's  servants."  Strype's  Parker, 
i.  376 — 380.  It  was  Parker's  ambition  upon  these  occasions  to 
rival  the  fetes  given  by  his  predecessor  Warham  to  the  Emperor 
Charles  V.  and  Henry  VIII.,  and  that  such  important  matters 
might  not  be  lost  to  posterity,  he  became  their  historian  himself. 
Ibid.  ii.  296.  297.  Even  when  he  retired  to  his  smallest  country 
residence,  Parker's  domestic  establishment  consisted  of  about  a 
hundred  retainers.  Ibid.  i.  277.  Parker,  however,  was  complete- 
ly outshone  by  Whitgil>,  who  rivalled  Wolsey  himself.  See  his 
Life  by  "Sir  George  Paule,  comptroller  of  his  Grace's  household," 
in  Wordsworth's  Ecclesiastical  Biography,  iv.  387 — 389. 
B  13 


10  THE  ANGLICAN  REFORMATION. 

of  Sabbath  observance  have  been  the  persecuted  Puritans, 
the  wonder  is,  not  that  it  should  be  so  grievously  desecrated, 
but  that  any  veneration  whatever  should  continue  to  be  paia 
to  it. 

Among  the  manifold  forms  in  which  the  queen's  attach- 
ment to  the  "  relics  of  Popery"  displayed  itself,  few  were  so 
offensive  to  the  clergy  as  her  countenance  of  clerical  celi- 
bacy and  her  opposition  to  the  marriage  of  the  priesthood. 
In  her  first  parliament,  an  attempt  was  made  to  pass  an  act 
to  legalize  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  as  had  been  done  in 
the  reign  of  her  brother,  but  she  would  not  permit  it.* 
Various  efforts  were  made  by  Cecil,  Parker  (who  was 
married  himself)  and  others,  to  induce  her,  at  subsequent 
periods,  to  yield  ;  but  their  attempts  only  exasperated  the 
vestal  queen.  In  1561,  she  issued  an  injunction  forbidding 
married  clergymen  from  living  with  their  wives  within  the 
precincts  of  colleges  or  cathedral  closes,  and  but  lor  the 
importunity  of  Cecil,  she  would  have  absolutely  forbidden 
the  marriage  of  the  clergy.  When  Parker  shortly  after- 
wards waited  upon  her,  she  scolded  him  with  much  "  bitter- 
ness," and  spoke  in  such  terms  not  only  against  clerical 
matrimony,  but  the  whole  constitution  of  the  Church  of 
England,  and  threw  out  such  hints  of  what  it  was  her  in- 
tention to  do,  to  remedy  the  evils  she  complained  of,  that, 
as  he  wrote  to  Cecil,  he  expected  nothing  short  of  an  abso- 
lute order  to  restore  things  to  the  condition  in  which  they 
stood  in  the  reign  of  her  sister,  or,  at  all  events,  that  she 
would  restore  so  much  of  popery  that  he  could  not  conform 
to  the  Church. j  When  she  cooled,  however,  and  saw  that 
Protestantism  was  the  only  tenure  by  which  she  held  her 
crown,  she  relented  so  far  as  not  to  compel  a  return  to 
popery,  but  she  issued  orders  imposing  conditions  upon  the 
marriage  of  the  priesthood,  which  he  must  have  been  not 
only  uxorious  indeed,  but  degraded  in  taste  and  spirit,  who 
could  comply  with.lj:  Never  could  she  be  got  to  give  any 
thing  more  than  a  tacit  connivance  to  clerical  matrimony, 
while  ever  and  anon  she  poured  her  contempt  upon  both 
the  married  clergy  and  their  wives.  That  amusing  gossip. 
Sir  John  Harrington,  gives  the  following  ludicrous  instance 
of  her  treatment  even  of  the  primate's  lady.  Parker  had 
given  Elizabeth  one  of  his  sumptuous  banquets  at  Lambeth. 

*  Strype's  An.  i.  118.  f  Strv'pe's  Parker,  i.  213—217. 

i  See  the  injunctions  in   Bishop  Sparrow's  Collections,  65,  or 
in  Dr.  Cardwell's  Documentary  Annals  of  the  Church  of  England, 
i.  No  43.  pp.  178—209. 
14 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  11 

As  the  queen  was  retiring,  she  thus  publicly  addressed 
Mrs.  Parker  :  "  Madam" — (the  usual  title  of  married  ladies) 
— -'  Madam  I  may  not  call  you,  Mistress,"  (the  ordinary 
title  of  unmarried  ladies)  "1  am  loath  to  call  you,  but, 
however,  I  thank  you  for  your  good  cheer."  In  1594,  she 
banished  Bishop  Fletcher,  lately  translated  from  Worcester 
to  London,  from  her  court,  for  having  married  "  a  fine 
lady,"  (sister  to  Sir  George  Gifford,  one  of  her  gentlemen 
pensioners,)  which  she  said  "  was  a  very  indecent  act  for 
an  elderly  clergyman."  Nor  did  her  wrath  end  here.  She 
commanded  Whifgift  to  suspend  him,  and  it  was  with  con- 
siflcrable  exertions  on  the  part  of  Cecil  that  at  the  end  of 
six  months  the  suspension  was  removed.  Still  she  would 
not  suffer  him  for  a  twelvemonth  afterward  to  appear  in  her 
presence.  The  poor  court  chaplain,  who  had  hitherto 
basked  in  the  sunshine  of  her  smiles,  pined  away  under  her 
frowns,  and  died  shortly  afterwards  of  a  broken  heart, — a 
warning  to  all  "  elderly  clergymen"  not  to  be  guilty  of  such 
"  indecent  acts"  in  future.*  We  shall  show  in  the  sequel 
that  if  Elizabeth  had  had  any  regard  to  the  morals  of  the 
clergy,  (which  she  had  not,)  she  ought  rather  to  have  pass- 
ed a  law  compelling  them  to  marry,  nor  would  it  have  mili- 
tated agauist  good  morals  had  she  set  them  the  example. 

Such  having  been  Elizabeth's  feelings  against  Protestant- 
ism and  in  favour  of  Popery,  it  must  be  matter  of  great  sur- 
prise to  ordinary  readers  that  she  should  ever  have  become 
a  Protestant  at  all.  And,  indeed,  we  are  thoroughly  per- 
suaded that  if  she  had  not  been  necessitated,  both  by  her 
personal  and  political  position,  to  promote  the  reformed  in- 
terest, she  would  have  remained  herself,  and  kept  the  king- 
dom too,  in  communion  with  the  Church  of  Rome.  Religion 
^vith  Elizabeth  was,  all  her  life,  a  mere  political  engine. 
While  she  persecuted  in  her  own  kingdom  all  who  opposed 
her  ecclesiastical  views,  she  aided  by  counsels,  men,  and 
money,  the  Protestants  of  Scotland,  France,  Geneva,  and 
the  Netherlands,  who  opposed  the  ecclesiastical  supremacy 
of  their  civil  governors.  The  court  of  Rome  had  declared 
her  father's  marriage  with  her  mother  invalid,  and  herself 
consequently  illegitimate,  and  incapable  of  inheriting  the 
throne  of  England.  On  her  accession,  she  despatched  a 
notification  of  that  event  to  Rome,  and  resolved  in  the  mean- 
while to  do  nothing  in  favour  of  the  Reformation,  lest  she 
might  alienate  the  Vatican.     The  pontiff,  however,  ignorant 

*  See  the  whole  account  in  Strype's  Whitgift,  ii.  215 — 218. 

15 


12  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

equally  of  his  own  impotency,  and  of  the  imperiousness  of 
her  whom  he  addressed,  sent  her  back  a  haughty  and  arro- 
gant answer,  declared  her  illegitimate,  commanded  her  to 
abandon  the  throne  she  had  usurped,  and  resign  herself  en- 
tirely to  the  will  of  the  holy  see  of  which  England  was  but 
a  fief.  Such  language  Elizabeth  could  little  brook  even  from 
the  assumed  vicar  of  Christ.  Had  the  energetic  but  wily 
and  insinuating  Sixtus  V.  then  occupied  the  chair  of  Peter, 
from  his  avowed  regard  for  the  congenial  character  of  Eliza- 
beth, and  from  other  politic  considerations,  the  answer  would 
assuredly  have  been  different,  and  the  result  would  as  assu- 
redly have  been  different  also.  Or  had  Elizabeth  been  a 
weak-minded  Papist,  as  she  was  a  strong-minded  one,  she 
might  have  been  terrified  into  compliance,  and  Mary  of  Scot- 
land would  have  ascended  the  throne  of  England  in  her  own 
person  instead  of  that  of  her  son.  But  God  made  the  wrath 
of  men  to  praise  him,  and  human  infirmities  and  folly  to 
magnify  his  own  wisdom  and  might.  Elizabeth's  courage 
could  as  little  falter  at  the  spiritual  thunders  of  the  Vatican 
as  at  the  more  formidable  artillery  of  the  Armada  of  Spain. 
She  therefore  at  once  determined  to  declare  open  war  with 
the  Papacy,  and  to  construct  the  Church  of  England  after  a 
model  which,  without  banishing  Popery  in  the  splendour  of 
its  ornaments,  the  magnificence  of  its  ritual,  the  mysticism 
of  its  sacraments,  or  the  scholasticism  of  its  dogmas,  should 
be  found  more  subservient  to  her  own  will,  and  more  con- 
ducive to  her  personal  aggrandizement,  than  if  it  held  of 
Rome.  She  resolved  to  unite  the  po/itijicale  with  the  regale 
in  her  own  person,  to  incorporate  the  triple-storied  tiara 
with  the  imperial  diadem,  and  grasp  the  keys  of  Peter  with 
the  same  hand  which  wielded  the  sword  of  Alfred.  In  one 
word,  she  determined  to  become  to  the  Church  of  England 
what  the  Pope  was  to  the  Church  of  Rome  ;  and  she  carried 
her  determination  into  execution. 

Elizabeth  left  neither  her  prelates  nor  her  privy  council 
at  any  loss  to  divine  her  intentions.  She  told  Parker  at  the 
interview,  at  which,  as  already  narrated,  she  had  denounced 
the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  that  she  meant  to  issue  out  in- 
junctions in  favour  of  Popery.*  Had  she  been  so  disposed, 
the  act  of  supremacy,  to  which  we  shall  immediately  allude, 
placed  the  entire  constitutional  power  so  to  do  in  her  hands. 
Political  considerations,  however,  dissuaded  her  from  seek- 
ing reconciliation  with  Rome.     She  valued  her  ecclesiastical 

*  Strype's  Parker,  i.  217,  218. 
16 


TTTE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  13 

supremacy  at  the  very  least  as  highly  as  her  civil  auto- 
cracy;  and  as  a  reconciliation  with  Rome  could  be  pur- 
chased only  by  the  surrender  of  the  former,  and  most  prob- 
ably also  of  the  latter,  Elizabeth  remained  satisfied  with  the 
power  to  render  the  national  religion  Popish  in  every  thing 
but  a  submission  to  the  universal  supremacy  of  the  Pope. 
Parker,  whose  conscience  was  sufficiently  elastic  to  enable 
him  to  remain  in  England  during  the  reign  of  Mary,  and 
whose  nerves  were  not  easily  shaken,  was  in  a  "  horror" 
at  the  determined  manner  in  which  she  told  him  she  was 
resolved  to  restore  Popery ;  and  he  anticipated  nothing  else 
than  that  he  should  be  one  of  the  first  victims  of  a  new 
Popish  persecution.*  Even  Cox,  who,  next  to  Cheney  of 
Gloucester,  was  the  most  papistical  of  Elizabeth's  first 
bishops,  was  so  well  aware  of  her  inclinations  to  restore 
more  oi"  Popery  than  even  he  desired,  tha  one  of  the  argu- 
ments which  he  employed  to  urge  Parker  to  a  more  vigor- 
ous persecution  of  the  Puritans,  was  an  apprehension  lest 
the  opposition  they  gave  to  her  ecclesiastical  arrangements 
should  provoke  her  to  a  total  abandonment  of  Protestantism, f 
Indeed,  so  well  established  is  this  point  by  the  clearest  his- 
toric evidence,  that  no  man  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the 
case  now  doubts  it,  except,  perhaps,  some  Anglican  evan- 
g(?licals,  who  are  retained  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church  of 
England  through"  a  delusive  idea  that  it  had  really  been 
reformed  by  Elizabeth.  The  High  Church  party  are  per- 
fectly aware  that  Elizabeth  did  prevent  the  reformation  of 
the  Church  of  England.  "This  arbitrary  monarch,"  says 
one  of  that  party,  "  had  a  tendency  towards  Rome  almost 
in  every  thing  but  the  doctrine  of  the  papal  supremacy.- 
To  the  real  presence  she  was  understood  to  have  no  objec- 
tion ;  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  she  decidedly  approved  ; 
the  gorgeous  rites  of  the  ancient  form  of  worship  she  ad- 
mired, and  in  her  own  chapel  retained."!  The  Puseyites 
gratefully  acknowledge  the  service  Elizabeth  rendered  to 
their  cause.  "  Queen  Elizabeth,"  says  one  of  that  school, 
*'  with   her   prejudices  in  favour  of  the  old   religion,   was 

*  Strype's  Parker,  Ap.  Records,  No.  17.  j-  Ibid.  i.  456. 

i  Quarterly  Review  for  June  1827,  p.  31.  See  even  the  low- 
church  Burnet,  the  indiscriminate  panegyrist  of  Elizabeth's  mea- 
sures, Hist.  Ref.  ed.  1839,  li.  582-3.  Dr.  Short,  the  present  bishop 
of  Sudor  and  Man,  makes  the  same  confession,  Sketch  of  the  Hist, 
of  the  Church  of  England,  2d  ed.  313,  et  passim.  And  so,  in  short, 
as  we  have  said,  do  all  historians,  except  some  evangelicals,  to 
whose  position  it  is  essential  to  overlook  the  fact. 

b2  2  17 


14  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATIO!^. 

doubtless  an  instrument  in  the  hand  of  God  for  stopping  th^ 
progress  of  the  Reformation."  *  Indeed,  the  only  objec- 
tions that  party  have  to  Elizabeth's  measures  is,  that  "she 
kept  the  supremacy  to  herself  instead  of  leaving  it  in  the 
hands  of  the  clergy. 

Still  with  all  her  faults,  and  they  are  sufficiently  numer- 
ous and  aggravated,  Elizabeth  was  a  splendid  monarch, 
and  we  can  easily  account  for  the  admiration  in  which  her 
memory  is  still  held  in  England.  To  view  her  to  advan- 
tage, or  perhaps  even  to  do  her  justice,  we  must  forget  her 
sex,  overlook  her  religious  opinions,  bear  in  mind  the  un- 
settled form  of  the  constitution,  and  judge  her  by  the  max- 
ims of  her  own  age.  That  assuredly  could  be  no  ordinary 
personage  who  could  task  the  consummate  sagacity  and 
finished  tact  of  Cecil,  fix  the  volatile  passions  of  Leicester, 
bend  the  stubborn  spirit  of  Parker,  outmancBuvre  the  Mla- 
chiavellian  policy  of  Montalto,  and  humble  the  genius, 
chivalry,  and  resources  of  Spain.  In  courage  equal  to 
Semiramis,  in  accomplishments  to  Zenobia,  in  policy  and 
energy  to  Catherine,  she  possessed  a  combination  of  talents 
to  which  none  of  them  could  lay  claim.  Forget  for  the 
moment  her  creed,  overlook  her  treatment  of  parliament 
and  the  Puritans,  place  yourself  in  her  own  age,  and  view 
her  merely  as  a  monarch,  and  even  prejudice  must  acknow- 
ledge that  she  was  the  most  magnificent  sovereign  that 
ever  occupied  the  English  throne. 

The  various  steps  by  which  the  Church  of  England  was 
brought  to  assume  its  present  form,  have  been,  as  might 
well  be  expected,  very  keenly  canvassed.  We  shall  en- 
able the  reader,  by  a  simple  induction  of  facts,  to  form  his 
own  opinion  both  of  the  Church  itself,  and  of  the  various 
means  by  which  it  was  primarily  established,  and  made  to 
assume  its  present  form. 

The  first  act  of  Elizabeth's  first  parliament  restored  to 
the  crown  the  supremacy  in  matters  spiritual  which  was 
possessed  by  Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI.,  but  which 
Mary  had  resigned  to  the  Pope.     By  this  act, 

"  Such  jurisdictions,  privileges,  superiorities  and  pr^-emi- 
nences,  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical,  as  by  any  spiritual  or 
ecclesiastical  power  or  authority  hath  heretofore  been,  or 
may  lawfully  be  exercised  or  used  for  the  visitation  of 
the  ecclesiastical  state  and  persons,  and  for  reformation, 
order  and  correction  of  the  same,  and   of  all   manner  of 

•  British  Critic  for  October  1842,  p.  333.     See  also  p.  330—1. 
18 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFOKMATION.  15 

3rrors,  heresies,  schisms,  abuses,  offences,  contempts  and 
enormities,  shall  for  ever,  by  the  authority  of  the  present 
parliament,  be  united  and  annexed  to  the  imperial  crown 
of  the  realm." 

By  a  clause  in  the  act  of  uniformity,  it  was  enacted, 
"  'i'hat  the  Queen's  Majesty,  by  advice  of  her  ecclesiastical 
commissioners,  may  ordain  and  publish  such  ceremonies  or 
rit(is  as  may  be  most  lor  the  advancement  of  God's  glory, 
and  tiic  edifying  of  the  church."  So  highly  did  Elizabeth 
esteem  the  authority  thus  conferred  upon  her,  that  she  told 
Parker  she  would  never  have  consented  to  establish  the 
Protestant  religion  at  all,  but  for  the  power  with  which  she 
was  thus  invested  to  change  it  according  to  her  own  will. 
Nor  let  it  be  forgotten  that  the  present  sovereign  Victoria 
has,  at  this  moment,  the  very  sfime  extent  of  power  which 
the  act  of  supremacy  conferred  upon  Elizabeth. 

In  order  to  enable  Elizabeth,  and  all  her  successors,  to 
exercise  this  most  exorbitant  power,  by  a  clause  in  the  act 
of  supremacy  she  v/as  empowered  to  delegate  her  authority 
to  any  persons,  being  natural  born  subjects,  whether  lay  or 
clerical,  who,  as  commissioners  from,  and  for  the  crown, 
were  empowered  to  "  visit,  reform,  redress,  order,  correct 
and  amend  all  such  errors,  heresies,  schisms,  abuses,  con- 
tempts and  enormities  whatsoever,  Vrhich,  by  any  manner 
of  spiritual  or  ecclesiastical  power,  authority  or  jurisdiction, 
can  or  may  lawiully  be  reformed,  ordered,  redressed,  cor- 
rected, restrained  or  amended." 

*'  Nothing,"  as  a  High-Church  historian  has  well  observ- 
ed, "  can  be  more  comprehensive  than  the  terms  of  this 
clause.  The  whole  compass  of  Church  discipline  seems 
(and  not  only  seems,  but  in  reality  was)  transferred  upon 
the  crown."  *  While  all  parties,  except  the  most  decided 
Erastians,  low-churchmen,  and  some  also  of  the  Evangeli- 
cal body,  have  united  in  condemning,  in  the  strongest  terms, 
the  spiritual  powers  thus  conferred  upon  the  crown,  their 
indignation  has  been  specially  directed  against  that  clause 
by  which  the  whole  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  of  the  Church 
(»l  England  may  be  exercised  by  lay  commissioners,  acting 
by  a  warrant  under  the  crown.  Had  the  crown  been 
restricted  to  employ  only  ecclesiastics  in  ecclesiastical 
causes,  the  evil  would  be  practically  redressed.  But  as 
the  crown  not  only  possessed,  but  exercised  the  power  to 
place  this  jurisdiction  in  the  hands  of  laymen,  who,  in  vir- 

•  Collier's  Ecclesiastical  History,  Barham's  edition,  vi.  224. 

19 


16  THE    A^GLICAX     Kr.FOT?3IATIO?r. 

tue  of  their  commission,  were  empowered  to  examine  cen- 
sure, suspend,  and  even  depose,  not  only  the  inferior  clergy, 
but  even  the  prelates  and  the  primat£?s,  and  did  too,  in 
manifold  instances,  execute  their  -commission,  it  were 
strange,  indeed,  if  any  man  who  can  distinguish  the 
Church  from  the  world,  and  things  spiritual  from  things 
civil,  could  but  deplore  and  condemn  this  foul  invasion  of 
the  privileges  of  Christ's  kingdom. 

Such  was  the  loundation  of  the  high  commission  court, 
and  of  the  star  chamber,  which  in  a  subsequent  age  proved 
so  disastrous,  not  only  to  the  liberties  and  the  lives  of  the 
subject,  but  hIso  to  the  stability  of  the  altar  and  the  throne. 
The  authority  of  these  courts  v/as  so  undefined,  their  powers 
so  despotic,  that  they  could  be  perpetuated  only  by  the 
destruction  of  all  liberty,  both  civil  and  religious. 

''  Whoever,"  says  a  Romanist  historian  of  high  name, 
"  will  compare  the  powers  given  to  this  tribunal,  (the  high 
commission  court,)  with  those  of  the  inquisition  which  Philip 
the  Second  endeavoured  to  establish  in  the  Low  Countries, 
will  find  that  the  chief  difference  between  the  two  courts 
consisted  in  their  names."  * 

And  all  that  a  learned  and  zealous  advocate  of  the 
Church  of  England  can  say  in  her  defence  is,  that  "  Dr. 
Lingard  ought  to  have  added,  that  though  such  commis- 
sions were  not  unknown  in  the  time  of  Edward  VI.,  the 
person  who  first  brought  into  England  the  model  attempted 
in  the  Low  Countries  was  Queen  Maiy ;  .  .  .  and  that  the 
same  system  was  continued  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  not 
bef-ause  it  v/as  congenial  with  the  spirit  of  Protestantism, 
but  because  the  temper  of  the  times  had  been  trained  and 
hardened  in  the  sc-hool  of  Popery. "|  As  if  it  were  not 
admitted,  even  by  this  apologist  himself,  that  the  Chunh 
of  England  had  the  precedency  of  Philip  in  the  institution 
of  a  court  of  inquisition  nnder  Edward,  as  if  any  man  but 
jin  out-and-out  apologist  of  the  Church  of  England  would 
identify'  the  actions  of  PJIizabefh  v/ith  the  genuine  manifes- 
tations of  "the  spirit  of  Protestantism,"  and  as  if,  besides, 
fhe  high  commission  court  and  the  star  chamber,  as  Dr. 
Card  well's  words  would  insinuate,  had  terminated  with  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  or  had  been  abolished  by  the  Church  of 
England,  when  he  very  well  knows  the  horroi^s  these  courts 

*  Lingard^s  History  of  England,  v.  316. 

f  Dr.  Cardweirs  Documentary  Anuais  of  the  Church  of  England, 
i.  223. 

20 


THE     ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  It 

perpetrated  in  subsequent  reigns,  and.  knows,  too,  that  it 
was  llie  rising  power  of  the  Puritans  that  demolished  these 
infernal  courts,  which  an  increasing  party  in  the  Church 
of  England,  who  fairly  represent  her  genius,  will  ere  long 
restore,  if  the  old  Puritan  spirit  do  not  prevent  such  a  na- 
tional calamity. 

Ample  as  the  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical  powers  thus 
conferred  upon  Elizabeth  were,  she  was  not  satisfied,  until, 
by  a  clause  in  the  act  of  supremacy,  all  persons  hohhng 
public  office,  civil,  juridical,  municipal,  military  or  eccle- 
siastical, were  required  to  take  an  oath  in  recognition  of 
the  supremacy  royal,  binding  themselves  to  defend  the 
same,  under  pain  of  being  deprived  of  their  offices,  and  of 
being  declared  incapable  of  further  employment.  This 
oath,  by  the  36th  canon,  continues  to  be  taken  by  all  eccle- 
siastics down  to  this  day. 

Thus,  by  one  disastrous  stroke,  the  liberties  of  the  Church 
of  England  were  cloven  down,  and  laid  prostrate  in  the 
dust.  All  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  all  spiritual  power, 
were  lodged  in  the  crown,  without  respect  to  the  sex,  creed, 
or  character  of  the  party,  who,  for  the  time,  might  happen 
to  wear  it.  The  prelates  and  pastors  of  that  Church  thus 
became,  even  in  the  discharge  of  their  most  sacred  func- 
tions, the  mere  vicars  and  delegates  of  the  supreme  civil 
magistrate.  Not  one  rite,  even  the  most  trivial,  can  they 
alter,  not  one  canon,  however  necessary,  can  they  pass, 
not  one  error,  however  gross,  can  they  reform,  not  one 
omission,  even  the  most  important,  can  they  supply.  The 
civil  magistrate  enacts  the  creed  they  are  bound  to  profess 
and  inculcate,  frames  the  prayers  which  they  must  offer  at 
the  throne  of  God,  prescribes  in  number  and  form  the  sa- 
craments they  must  administer,  arranges  the  rites  and  vest- 
ments they  must  use,  down  to  the  colour,  shape,  and  stuff 
of  a  cap  or  a  tunicle,  and  takes  discipline  altogether  out  of 
thf;ir  hand.  The  parish  priest  has  no  authority  to  exclude 
the  most  profligate  sinner  from  communion  ;  the  lordliest 
prelate  and  primate  cannot  excommunicate  the  most  aoan- 
doned  sinner,  or  suspend  the  most  immoral  ecclesiastic 
from  his  functions;  and  should  either  the  priest  or  the 
prelate  attempt  to  exercise  the  discipline  prescribed  by  the 
Lord  Jesus  in  his  house,  he  will  speedily  be  made  to  under- 
stand, by  the  terrors  of  a  prcEmitnire^  or  the  experience  of 
a  prison,  that  he  is  not  appointed  in  the  Church  of  England 
to  administer  the  laws  of  Christ,  but  the  statutes  of  the  im 
2*  21 


18  THE    ANGLICAN    11EFOK3IATION.  "         -^ 

penal  parliament,  or  the  injunctions  of  the  crown.*  iN'ever 
was  there  so  autocratical  a  despotism  placed  in  the  hands 
of  a  human  being,  as,  by  the  Constitution  of  the  Church 
of  England,  is  reposed  in  the  sovereign — never,  on  earth, 
was  there  so  fettered  and  enthralled  a  community  as  the 
southern  establishment.  The  muftis  and  other  ecclesiasti- 
cal functionaries  (so  to  term  them)  have  an  indefinite  au- 
thority by  the  constitution  of  Turkey  to  resist  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Sultan — A  general  council,  it  is  the  prevalent 
opinion  among  Romanists,  can  control  the  authority  of  the 
pope,  and  in  both  cases  the  supreme  functionaries  are  con- 
sidered spiritual  officers ;  but  in  the  Church  of  England, 
priests,  prelates,  and  primates,  have  no  authority  what- 
ever^  ecclesiastics  though  they  be,  to  control,  or  even  to 
modify,  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  a  lay  and  civil  magis- 
trate. 

So  anomalous  a  society  was  never  witnessed,  if  society 
it  can  be  called,  which  has  not  one  single  element  of  an 
organized  community, — which  consists  of  a  mere  conge- 
ries of  individual  atoms  without  laws  enacted  by  themselves, 
without  officers  appointed  by  themselves,  or  powers  lodged 
in  themselves,  which  has  no  self-existing  attributes,  no  self- 
regulating  agency,  which,  in  one  word,  has  not  one  single 
element,  even  the  most  essential  of  a  corporate  body. 
Were  we  disposed  to  push  our  arguments,  as  far  as  we  are 
warranted,  we  might  deny  that  the  Church  of  England  is  a 
Church  at  all.  For  let  it  be  observed  that,  as  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  spiritual  power  cannot  be  lodged  in  lay 
or  civil  hands,  any  more  than  authority  to  administer  the 

*  It  is  only  one  or  two  years  ago  that  a  country  clergyman  wrote 
the  editor  of  the  Christian  Observer  for  advice  under  the  follow- 
ing circumstances.  A  married  gentleman  in  his  parish  lived  in  a 
state  of  open  adultery  with  the  wife  of  another  man.  A  child  was 
the  fruit  of  this  unhallowed  union.  The  guilty,  but  shameless 
mother,  actuated  by  feelings  which  we  are  glad  we  cannot  analyze, 
came  to  the  minister,  insisting  upon  being  "churched;"  that  is, 
that  a  particular  office,  appointed  for  the  purpose,  should  be  offer- 
ed np  next  Sabbath,  returning  thanks  to  the  God  of  all  holiiif'ss 
for  the  safe  delivery  of  this  infant,  born  in  double  adultery.  We 
know  not  what  was  the  issue  of  the  case,  but  our  brethren  of  the 
Synod  of  Ulster,  in  one  of  their  late  admirable  works  in  favour 
of  presbytery  (Presbyterianism  Defended,  pp.  183-4.  203-4,)  men- 
tion an  instance  of  a  minister  who  was  kept  for  years  in  prison 
for  having  refused  the  strumpet  of  a  gentleman  resident  in  his 
parish  admission  to  the  Lord's  Supper.  The  late  case  of  the  dean 
of  York  shows  the  jurisdiction,  or  rather  total  want  of  jurisdic- 
tion, which  Uie  prelate  possesses  over  the  clergy. 
22 


THE    AKGLICAN    Ri:FOIi3IATION.  19 

sacraments,  the  Lord's  Supper,  as  well  as  baptism,  and  to 
confer  ordrrs,  can  be  possessed  by  a  layman  or  a  woman  ; 
and  as  all  priestly  pov/ors,  by  the  constitution  of  the  Church 
of  England,  are  placed  in  the  sovereign — the  prelates  be- 
ing his  mere  delegates,  (and  that,  whether  as  in  the  reign  of 
[ienry  VIII.,  and  of  Edvvard  VI.,  they  are  obliged  to  take 
out  a  commission  to  empower  them  to  perform  their  func- 
tions, or  submit,  as  they  all  must  now  do,  to  the  36th  can- 
on ;)  and  as,  moreover,  every  society  must  possess  some 
species  of  organization,  suited  to  its  peculiar  character, 
which  the  Church  of  England,  as  a  Churchy  does  not  pos- 
sess, it  raises  a  serious  question,  whether  that  can  be  ac- 
counted a  Church,  if  we  are  to  take  our  ideas  of  a  Church 
from  the  word  of  God.  We  certainly  have  no  intention 
whatsoever  to  maintain,  as  so  many  of  them  do  regarding 
us,  that  the  individuals  who  compose  that  Church  are  cast 
out  to  the  "  uncovenanted  mercies  of  God  ;"  for  we  rejoice 
to  know  that  the  grace  of  God  is  not  restrained  by  any 
external  impediments  ;  and  we  rejoice  further  to  know,  that 
there  are-  many  of  God's  chosen  ones  in  communion  with 
that  Church,  as  we  doubt  not  was  also  the  case  even  in 
the  Church  of  Rome,  during  the  middle  ages ;  but  as  a 
Churchy  or  scripturally  constituted  society,  we  dare  not 
but  have  considerable  difficulty  in  recognizing  it.* 

*  When  Henry  VIII.  was  about  to  appoint  a  commission  to  ex- 
amine the  state  of  the  religious  houses,  he,  with  one  stroke  of  his 
pen,  suspended  all  the  prelates  in  England  from  the  exercise  of 
their  jurisdiction.  He  afterwards,  at  the  humble  petition  of  each 
prelate  separately  presented,  was  graciously  pleased  to  restore 
him  to  his  functions  by  a  commission,  in  which  it  was  distinctly 
specified  that  he  was  to  regard  himself  as  the  mere  vicar  ot' the 
crown.  The  terms  of  these  commissions  are  sufficiently  startling 
to  any  m;\n  who  has  not  sounded  the  lowest  depths  of  Erastian- 
ism.  We  may  give  a  condensed  summary  of  one  clause  of  these 
singular  instruments:  "Since  all  authority,  civil  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal, flows  from  the  crown,  and  since  Cromwell,"  (a  mere  layman, 
but  made  vicar-general  in  sfdrituaUhuf;  over  all  the  clergy)  "to 
whom  (and  not  to  the  prelates)  the  ecclesiastical  part  has  been 
committed,"  {vices  noslras  as  the  vicar  of  the  crown)  "is  so  occu- 
pied, that  he  cannot  fully  exercise  it,  we  commit  to  you  (each  in- 
dividual prelate)  the  license  of  ordaining,  granting  insfitulion  and 
collation,-  and,  in  short,  of  performing  all  other  ecclesiastical 
acts  ;  and  we  allow  you  to  hold  this  authority  during  our  pleasure, 
as  you  must  answer  to  God  and  to  us!"  Similar  commissions 
were  granted  by  Edward  VI.  to  his  prelates.  See  the  originals 
m  Collier  (fol.)  ii.  rec.  Nos.  31,  41;  or  Barham's  ed.  ix.  pp.  12.3, 
157;  Burnet,  i.  rec.  b.  iii.  No.  14;  and  ii.  No.  '«;  or  London  8vo. 
ed.  1839 ;  iv.  pp.  104,  249. 

23 


20  THE    A^'GLICA^'    REFOKMATION. 

The  Erastian  thraldom  to  which  the  Church  of  England 
has  been  reduced,  cannot  but  be  galling  to  all  her  rightly- 
constituted  clergy,  and  we  so  deeply  sympathize  with  them, 
that  we  put  the  most  favourable  construction  upon  all  their 
apologies  for  themselves.  We  cannot,  however,  lend  the 
same  indulgence  to  their  attempts  to  prove  that  theirs  is  the 
best  possible  constitution,  any  more  than  we  could  listen 
with  any  patience  to  a  West  Indian  slave,  who  should  shake 
his  fetters  in  our  face  as  an  evidence  of  the  superior  advan- 
tages of  slavery.  Even  this,  however,  we  might  pass  with 
a  sigh  for  the  degradation  to  which  slavery  reduces  its  vic- 
tims, but  we  cannot  extend  the  same  tolerance  to  their  libels 
upon  other  Churches  for  having  had  the  manliness  of  spirit 
to  assert  their  proper  liberty,  and  the  regard  to  the  honour 
of  Jesus  to  vindicate  his  sovereign  exclusive  supremacy  in 
his  own  Church.  And  yet  a  member  of  the  Church  of 
England  can  never  think  of  defending  his  own  Church,  but 
he  must  at  the  same  time  attack  the  Churches  of  others,  and 
especially  the  Church  of  Scotland,*  Just  notice  the  self- 
complacent  absurdity  of  the  following  passage  t'rom  the  last 
page  of  the  work  noticed  in  the  preceding  note,  by  the  pre- 
sent bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man  :  "  Compare,"  says  Dr.  Short, 
addressing  men  who  are  too  ignorant  to  be  capable  of  insti- 
tuting a  comparison,  or  too  prejudiced  to  be  able  to  pass  an 
impartial  judgment,  "  compare  v/hat  took  place  in  Scotland 
with  what  took  place  in  England,  at  the  period  of  the  Refor- 
mation ;"  and  after  showing  some  of  those  thinL':s  which  did 
take  place  in  England,  and  stating  that  "the  admirer  of  our 
Episcopal  Church — our  apostolic  establishment"  must  thank 
the  timid,  if  not  the  time-serving  and  Erastian  Cranmer,  that 
the  Church  of  England  was  reformed  precisely  as  she  was, 
and  that  it  did  not  happen  there  as  it  did  happen  am.ong 
us — we  have  Dr.  Short's  word  for  it — "  that  the  force  of  the 
multitude  ...  in  Scotland  (had)  thrown  down  what  the 
Episcopalians  will  consider  as  almost  the  (church  itself" 

And  who,  pray,  composed  that  "multitude"  of  which 
Dr.  Short  speaks  so  very  contemptuously  ?  The  Christian 
people  of  Scotland,  who  through  "  the  unction  of  the  Holy 
One,"  had,  by  an  ordination  higher  than  the  Church  of 
England    can    confer,   been    made   a  "  royal  priesthood ;'' 

*  See  some  specimens  of  this  line  of  defence  and  attack,  which 
would  be  amusing  enough  from  their  ludicrousness,  if  they  were 
not  pitiable  from  the  perversity  of  judgment  they  display,  in  D<r. 
Short's  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  104,  242 
-3,  198,  and  elsewhere. 
24 


THE    A^'GLICAN     REFOTI  NATION.  21 

and  who,  both  by  their  position  in  the  Church,  and  by  their 
qualification,  were  thus  entitled  and  bound  by  more  author- 
itative "  injunctions"  than  ever  emanated  iVom  prince  or 
prelate,  to  "  try  the  spirits,"  and  not  to  accept  of  any  man 
to  be  minister  over  them,  unless,  as  his  credentials,  he 
brought  with  him,  not  "letters  of  orders,"  or  an  excerpt 
from  a  pretended  apostolical  genealogy,  but  the  gifts,  graces, 
and  gospel  of  the  living  God.  And,  pray,  what  horrible 
acts  did  this  same  "  multitude"  commit,  which  should  be  so 
enormous  as  to  lead  "  an  Episcopalian  to  consider  that  ihey 
had  almost  thrown  down  the  Church  itself?"  Why,  they 
just  followed  where  their  ministers  led  them — no  great 
crime,  one  should  suppose,  in  the  eyes  of  a  prelate;  and 
also,  in  conformity  with  the  prophetic  enunciation  of  their 
God-commissioned  apostle,  they  fancied,  that  the  "  best 
way  to  prevent  the  rooks  from  returning  was  to  pull  down 
their  nests,"  a  proceeding,  the  prophetic  sagacity  of  which 
has  been  demonstrated  by  the  history  of  the  Church  of 
England,  in  whose  dark  cloisters  rooks  have  continued  to 
roost  ever  since  the  Reformation,  to  which  as  their  saie 
retreats  they  betake  themselves  whenever  the  moral  efful- 
gence of  the  truth  becomes  painful  to  their  distempered 
optics,  and  from  which,  as  at  present,  they  come  forth  in 
darkening  clouds  whenever  the  fields  seem  ripe  for  their 
pillage.  But  let  us  return  to  the  history  of  the  Anglican 
Reformation. 

When  Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne,  Popery,  as  restored 
by  Mary,  v»'as  the  established  religion.  Those  Protestanis 
who  had,  in  the  words  of  Fuller,  "contrived  to  weather  out 
the  storm"  of  Mary's  persecutions  at  home  in  England, 
depending  u{K)n  the  protestantism  of  the  daughter  of  Anne 
Boleyn,  the  early  patroness  of  the  Reformation,  now  ven- 
tured to  celebrate  public  wt^rship  according  to  the  liturgy 
of  Edward  VI.  This  was  done  with  still  more  zeal  by  the 
exiles  who  had  fled  to  the  continent  to  avoid  the  persecu- 
tion of  Mary,  and  had  now  returned  in  the  hope  of  enjoy- 
ing liberty  oi'  conscience  in  their  native  land.  Elizabeth, 
however,  had  hitherto  done  nothing  to  indicate  that  she  was 
favourable  fo  the  reibrmed  faith,  but  much  to  the  contrary. 
She  had  been  crowned  according  to  the  forms  of  the  popish 
pontifical,  of  which  a  high  mass  was  an  essential  part. 
The  exiles,  however,  presuming  at  least  upon  a  toleration, 
began  tc  celebrate  public  worship  according  to  the  reformed 
ritual,  and  to  preach  to  the  people  the  unsearchable  riches 
of  Christ.  Elizabeth,  when  apprized  of  this  proceeding, 
C  25 


22  THE    ANGLICAN    REFOTOIATION. 

issued  a  proclamation,  forbidding  all  preaching,  and  the  use 
of  Edward's  liturgy,  and  commanding  that  in  public  wor- 
"ship  the  missal  in  Latin  should  be  employed,  except  the 
litany,  the  Lord's  prayer,  and  the  creed,  which  were  tole- 
rated in  English.  The  only  instruction  to  be  given  to  the 
people  consisted  of  the  "  gospel  and  the  epistles  of  the  day," 
with  the  ten  commandments,  which  were  allowed  to  be 
read  in  the  English  tongue.  Religion,  throughout  this 
year,  (1558)  continued  precisely  as  it  had  been  in  the 
reign  of  Mary,  and  was  celebrated  by  precisely  the  same 
priests,  with  the  addition  of  so  many  of  the-exiles  as  had 
returned,  and  the  few  Protestants  who  had  remained  at 
home.* 

Elizabeth,  however,  was  aware  that  some  alteration  in 
religion  must  be  made.  Accordingly,  about  the  period  at 
which  she  summoned  her  first  parliament,  she  appointed 
certain  divines,  under  the  presidency  of  Secretary  Sir 
Thomas  Smith,  to  prepare  a  liturgy  which  might  be  laid 
beibre  the  legislature.  These  divines  were  instructed  to 
compare  Edward's  two  liturgies  with  the  popish  offices,  and 
to  frame  such  a  form  of  prayer  as  might  suit  the  circum- 
stances of  the  times.  They  were,  however,  to  give  a  pre- 
ference to  Edward's  first  liturgy,  which  retained  many 
popish  dogmas  and  usages,  in  all  matters  to  be  very  wary 
of  innovations,  and  especially,  to  leave  all  matters  in  dis- 
cussion between  the  Protestants  and  the  Papists  so  unde- 
fined, and  expressed  in  such  general  terms  as  not  to  of- 
fend the  latter.  Elizabeth's  great  desire  in  this,  and, 
indeed,  in  all  her  measures,  was  to  comprehend  the 
Papists  in  any  form  of  religion  which  might  be  estab- 
lished. She  never  seems  to  have  entertained  any  desire 
to  conciliate  or  concede  any  thing  to  her  Protestant  sub- 
jeets. 

The  divines  having  finished  their  work,  brought  the 
drait  of  a  liturgy  to  Cecil,  in  order  to  its  being  submitted 
to  her  majesty.  Before  presenting  it  to  parliament  Eliza- 
beth made  various  important  alterations  on  it,  all  for 
the  express  purpose  of  reducing  it  to  a  nearer  conformity 
to  thf^  popish  liturgies,  and  thus  conciliating  the  Papists. 
It  were  altogether  beyond  our  present  limits  to  give  a 
minute  enumeration  of  the  various  alterations  introduced 
by  Elizabeth  into  the  draft  presented  to  her  by  the  divines, 
or  to  show  in  what,  and  how  many  particulars,  her  prayer- 

*  Strype's  Annals,  i.  59,  74,  77;  Burnet  ii.  585;  Collier  vi  200. 
26 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  23 

book,  which  (with  a  few  verbal  alterations  since  introduced) 
is  the  liturgy  at  present  in  use  in  the  Church  of  England, 
is  still  more  popish  than  even  that  which  was  in  use  at 
the  death  of  Edward.  A  few,  however,  must  be  men- 
tioned.* 

In  the  litany  of  Edward's  second  liturgy  there  was  a 
prayer  in  the  following  terms  : — "  From  the  tyranny  of  the 
Bishop  of  Rome,  and  all  his  detestable  enormites,  good  Lord 
deliver  us."  This  was  cancelled  in  the  liturgy  of  Eliza- 
beth,— we  can  be  at  no  loss  to  divine  for  what  reason. 
In  the  communion  office  of  the  former,  when  the  minister 
delivered  the  bread  to  the  communicant,  he  said,  "  Take, 
and  eat  this,  in  remembrance  that  Christ  died  for  thee,  and 
feed  on  him  in  thine  heart  by  faith,  with  thanksgiving;" 
and  when  he  delivered  the  cup,  he  said,  "  Drink  this  in 
remembrance  that  Christ's  blood  was  shed  for  thee,  and  be 
thankful," — clearly  implying  that  it  was  merely  an  eucha- 
ristict  commemoration,  rendered  efficacious  only  through 
faith.  In  the  communion  office  of  the  latter,  the  priest,  in 
handing  the  bread,  said  to  the  communicant,  "  The  body 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which  was  given  for  thee,  pre- 
serve thy  body  and  soul  unto  everlasting  life.  Take  and 
eat  this,"  &c.  And  when  delivering  the  cup,  "  The  blood 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which  was  shed  for  thee,  pre- 
serve thy  body  and  soul  unto  everlasting  life.  Drink  this," 
&;c. — words  that  were  expressly  intended  to  imply  the  real 
presence,  and  an  opus  operatuni  efficacy,  without  any 
regard  whatever  to  the  faith  or  spiritual  condition  of  the 
communicant.  In  order  to  prevent  the  idea  that  when 
kneeling  was  retained  as  the  required  posture  at  the  com- 
munion, it  was  intended  to  imply  that  Christ  was  bodily 
present,  or  that  any  adoration  was  designed  to  be  gi^en  to 
the  elements,  a  rubric  was  added  to  the  office  in  Edward's 
second  prayer-book,  which  declared  that  the  elements  re- 


*  Those  who  desire  fuller  information,  we  recommend  to  stud} 
Dr.  Cardwell's  History  of  Conferences  on  the  Book  of  Comnrion 
Prayer;  the  two  Liturgies  of  Edward  VI.  compared,  by  the  same 
author;  Dr.  Short's  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, 537—549;  Collier's  History,  vi.  248—250;  and  Records,  No. 
77;  Strype's  Annals,  i.  98—123:  see  also  Baillie's  Parallel  of  the 
Liturgy  with  the  Mass  Book,  the  Breviary,  and  other  Romish  Rit- 
uals, 4to.,  1641;  Wheatley's  Rationale  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  and  the  other  Ritualists;  Palmer's  Origines  Lilurgica?- 
Burnet,  Neale,  and  the  other  historians,  all  take  up  the  subject, 
but  very  imperfectly. 

27 


24  THE  AXGLTCAN  REFORMATION. 

mained  unchanged,  and  that  no  adoration  was  given  them. 
This  rubric  was  omitted  in  Elizabeth's  prayer-book,  and 
the  communicant  was  left  to  believe  and  to  adore  as  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  do.  The  divines  who  had  drawn  up 
Elizabeth's  liturgy  left  it  to  the  choice  of  the  communicant 
himself  to  receive  the  communion  kneeling  or  standing; 
Elizabeth  made  it  imperative  upon  all  to  receive  it  kneeling. 
These  divines,  besides,  had  disapproved  of  any  distinction 
being  made  between  the  vestments  worn  by  the  ministers 
while  celebrating  the  eucharist,  and  those  worn  at  other 
parts  of  the  service ;  Elizabeth,  however,  made  it  impera- 
tive on  the  officiating  priest  to  administer  the  sacrament  in 
the  old  popish  vestments,  as  was  the  case  in  Edward's  first 
liturgy,  but  had  been  altered  in  the  second;  and  in  order 
that  the  benighted  Papists  might,  by  act  of  parliament,  and 
of  the  supremacy  royal,  have  every  encouragement  to  con- 
tinue in  their  idolatry,  it  was  ordered  that  the  bread  should 
be  changed  into  the  icafer  formerly  used  at  private  masses. 
Not  satisfied  with  the  popish  innovations  she  had  already 
made,  and  seemingly  apprehensive  that  if  she  went  at  once 
so  far  as  she  felt  inclined  in  her  retrogression  towards 
Rome,  she  might  find  some  difficulty  in  carrying  the  pre- 
lates and  the  parliament  along  with  her,  Elizabeth  intro- 
duced into  the  act  o'i  uniformity  (to  which  we  shall  allude 
immediately)  a  clause  by  which  she  was  empowered  "  to 
ordain  and  publish  such  further  rites  and  ceremonies  as 
should  be  most  for  the  reverence  of  Christ's  holy  myste- 
ries and  sacraments  ;"  words  of  ominous  import ;  and,  as 
we  have  already  stated,  she  told  Parker  that  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  power  thus  conferred  upon  her,  "  she 
would  not  have  agreed  to  divers  orders  of  the  book."  * 

The  liturgy  having  been  thus  prepared  was  introduced 
into  parliament,  in  a  bill  for  "Uniformity  of  prayer,  and 
administration  of  sacraments,"  and  passed  through  the 
Commons,  seemingly  without  opposition,  in  the  short  space 
of  three  days.  It  met  with  some  opposition  in  the  upper 
house  from  a  few  of  the  popish  prelates  and  peers,  but  was 
carried,  without  one  word  being  altered,  by  a  most  trium- 
phant majority;  and  having  received  the  royal  assent,  be- 
came a  law. 


*  Peirce's  Vindic.  of  Dis.  p.  47.     Strype,  Burnet,  Collier,  &c., 
fancy  that  some  of  these  alterations  were  introduced  by  parlia- 
ment, but  Dr.  Cardwell  has  shown  that  they  were  the  work  of  Eliza- 
beth ;  see  Cardwell's  History  of  Conf.  pp.  21,  22. 
28 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  25 

The  population  of  England  at  this  time  consisted  of  two 
great  parties,  Puritans  and  Papists,  with  of  course  some 
neutrals,  who  were  prepared  to  join  either  party  accord- 
ing as  their  interests  might  seem  to  dictate.  These  great 
parties  differed,  as  in  every  thing  else,  so  also  in  their  esti- 
mation of  the  prayer-book.  We  now  proceed  to  consider 
the  opinions  and  the  conduct  of  each  of  these  parties  in 
regard  to  the  newly  imposed  liturgy. 

The  intrinsic  character  of  the  Anglican  liturgy  may  be 
very  safely  inferred  from  the  sources  whence  it  was  drawn, 
and  the  estimation  in  which  it  was  held  by  Papists.  In  re- 
gard to  the  former,  it  is  known  to  all  in  any  measure  con- 
versant with  the  subject,  that  the  book  of  common  prayer 
was  taken  from  the  Romish  service-book.  "  In  our  public 
services,"  says  the  present  bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man,  «'  the 
greater  part  of  the  book  of  common  prayer  is  taken  from 
the  Roman  ritual."  Again, — "  In  giving  an  account  of  the 
common  prayer-book,  it  will  be  more  correct  to  describe  it 
as  a  work  compiled  from  the  services  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  or  rather  as  a  translation  than  as  an  original  com- 
position." Again,  speaking  of  Edward's  first  prayer-book, 
of  which,  indeed,  he  spoke  in  both  the  preceding  instances, 
he  says,  '*  almost  the  whole  of  it  was  taken  from  different 
Roman  Catholic  services,  particularly  those  after  the  use 
of  Salisbury,  which  were  then  generally  adopted  in  the 
south  of  England,  and  the  principle  on  which  the  compilers 
proceeded  in  the  work,  was  to  alter  as  little  as  possible 
what  had  been  familiar  to  the  people.  Thus  the  litany  is 
nearly  the  same  as  in  the  Salisbury  hours."  Speaking  of 
the  Anglican  ordination  office,  he  says,  "  its  several  parts 
are  taken  from  that  in  use  in  the  Church  of  Rome,"  with 
few  exceptions,  which  he  mentions.  In  a  note,  he  states 
that  those  parts  of  the  liturgy  which  were  not  taken  from 
the  service  books  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  were  drawn  from 
a  prayer-book  compiled  about  this  time  by  Hserman,  the 
popish  bishop  of  Cologne.*  Edward's  second  prayer-book 
was  a  revised  edition  of  the  first,  omitting  some  of  the 
grosser  abominations  of  Popery  which  the  first  contained. 
The  present  prayer-book  of  the  Church  of  England  stands 
about  half-way  between  the  first  and  second  of  Edward, 
and  was,  as  we  have  seen  above,  taken  almost  verbatim 
from  the  popish  service  book.  Such,  then,  is  the  parentage 
of  "  our  apostolical  prayer-book — our  incomparable  liturgy 

»  Sketch  of  the  History,  &c.,  201,  537,  540,  541. 
c2  3  29 


26  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

— our  inestimable  service  book/'  of  which  even  evangeli- 
cal members  of  the  Church  of  England  cannot  speak  in 
terms  sufficiently  expressive  of  their  rapturous  admira- 
tion. 

Bearing  all  this  in  mind,  we  shall  cease  to  feel  any  sur- 
prise at  the  fact  mentioned  by  all  historians  of  the  period, 
that  so  well  satisfied  were  the  Papists  with  the  Reformed 
(so  termed)  services,  and  so  little  difference  did  they  dis- 
cover between  the  modern  and  the  ancient  ritual,  that  for 
the  first  ten  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign  they  continued, 
"  without  doubt  or  scruple,"  as  Heylin  says,  to  attend  pub- 
lic worship  in  the  Church  of  England.  Indeed,  as  all 
acknowledge,  who  know  any  thing  of  the  subject,  if  the 
court  of  Rome  had  not  altered  its  policy  towards  England, 
excommunicated  Elizabeth,  and  forbidden  her  subjects  to 
attend  the  Established  Church,  the  Papists  would  have 
remained  conscientiously  convinced,  that  in  worshipping  in 
the  Anglican  establishment,  they  were  still  attending  upon 
the  Romish  services  ;  so  imperceptible  to  their  well-prac- 
tised senses  was  the  difference  between  the  two,  and  so  well 
did  the  compilers  of  the  prayer-book  or  the  revisers  of  their 
work  accomplish  the  task  prescribed  to  them  by  the  queen, 
viz.  to  frame  a  liturgy  which  should  not  offend  the  Papists.* 
Nay,  but  what  is  more,  when  a  copy  of  the.  prayer-book 
had  been  sent  to  the  Pope,  so  well  was  he  satisfied  with  it, 
that  he  offered,  through  his  nuncio  Parpalia,  to  ratify  it  for 
England,  if  the  queen  would  only  own  the  supremacy  of 
the  see  of  Rome.f  Such  was  the  estimation  in  which  the 
Pope  and  his  followers  held  the  prayer-book,  which  Angli- 
cans now  can  never  mention  without  exhausting  all  the 
superlatives  in  the  vocabulary  of  commendation  to  express 
their  most  unbounded  admiration  of  "  our  inimitable,  inesti- 
mable, incomparable,  apostolic,  (?)  and  all  but  inspired  lit- 
urgy."    Nothing  strikes   so  painfully  upon  the  ear  as  to 

*  Sir  George  Paule  relates  in  his  panegyric  on  Whitgift,  that  an 
Italian  Papist,  lately  arrived  in  England,  on  seeing  that  ambitious 
primate  in  the  cathedral  of  Canterbury  one  Sabbath,  "auended 
upon  by  an  hundred  of  his  own  servants  at  least,  in  livery,  where- 
of there  were  forty  gentlemen  in  chains  of  gold;  also  by  the  dean, 
prebendaries,  and  preachers,  in  their  surplices  and  scarlet  hoods, 
and  heard  the  solemn  music,  with  the  voices  and  organs,  cornets 
and  sackbuts,  he  was  overtaken  with  admiration,  and  told  an  Eng- 
lish gentleman,  that  unless  it  were  in  the  Pope's  chapel,  he  never 
saw  a  more  solemn  sight,  or  heard  a  more  heavenly  sound." — 
Wordsworth's  Eccl.  Biog.,  iv.  388—9. 

f  Strype's  An.  i.  340.     Burnet,  ii.  645.     Collier,  vi.  308—9. 
30 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  27 

hear  a  man  of  evangelical  sentiments  utter  such  hyperboles 
in  laudation  of  a  popish  compilation,  which  even  antichrist 
otiered  to  sanction.  In  attempting  to  account  for  so  start- 
ling a  phenomenon,  we  have  heard  men  less  charitable 
than  ourselves  surmise,  that  the  only  principle  on  which  it 
can  be  accounted  for  is^that  the  less  intrinsic  merit  any 
object  possesses,  the  more  loudly  must  it  be  praised,  to 
secure  for  it  popular  acceptance.  For  our  own  parts  we 
must  say  we  rank  the  matter  under  the  category  de  gusti- 
bus,  &c.,  and  say  there  is  no  disputing  about  taste.  And 
if  members  of  the  Church  of  England  were  satisfied  with 
enjoying  it  themselves,  without  thrusting  it  upon  other  peo- 
ple, and  if  moreover  they  did  not,  as  some  of  them  do, 
place  it  upon  a  level  with  the  Bible,  we  should  for  our  own 
part  be  as  little  disposed  to  deny  them  its  use,  as  we  cer- 
tainly are  to  envy  them  its  possession. 

The  commendations  bestowed  by  Papists  upon  the  An- 
glican prayer-book,  might  of  itself  lead  us  to  infer  that  it 
did  not  satisfy  the  Reformers ;  and  the  conclusion  thus  ar- 
rived at  is  as  much  in  accordance  with  historic  facts  as  it  is 
the  result  of  logical  accuracy.  The  continental  Reformers 
to  a  man  expressed  both  contempt  and  indignation  towards 
the  Anglican  liturgy.  Calvin*  declared,  that  he  found  in  it 
many  [tolerabiles  ineptias^)  i.  e.  "  tolerable  fooleries  ;"  that 
is,  tolerable  for  the  moment,  as  children  are  allowed,  (to 
use  quaint  old  Fuller's  illustration)  to  "  play  with  rattles  to 
get  them  to  part  with  knives."  Knoxt  declared,  that  it 
contained  "diabolical  inventions,  viz.  crossing  in  baptism, 
kneeling  at  the  Lord's  table,  mumbling  or  singing  of  the 
liturgy,"  &c.,  and  "  that  the  whole  order  of  (the)  book  ap- 
peared rather  to  be  devised  for  upholding  of  massing  priests, 
than  for  any  good  instruction  which  the  simple  people  can 
thereof  receive."  Beza,:]:  writin^j  to  Bui  linger  about  the 
state  of  England  and  the  English  Church,  says,  "  I  clearly 
|)erceive  that  Popery  has  not  been  ejected  from  that  king- 
dom, but  has  been  only  transferred  from  the  Pope  to  the 
fjueen;  and  the  only  aim  of  parties  in  power  there  is  to 
bring  back  matters  to  the  state  in  which  they  formerly 
slood.  I  at  one  time  thought  that  the  only  subject  of  con- 
tention (between   the   Puritans   and   the  Conformists)   was 

*  Epist.  p.  28,  t  ix.  ed.  1667. 

f  Calderwood's  History,  (Wodrow  ed.,)  i.  431.  See  the  whole 
letter,  pp.  425 — 434. 

+  Strype's  An.  ii.  Rec.  No.  29.  The  whole  letter  deserves  a  carC' 
ful  perusal. 

31 


28  THE    A^GLICAJJ    iiEFi>Ry^.\Tl07i. 

about  caps  and  external  vestments  ;  but  i  now,  to  my  in- 
expressible sorrow,  understand  that  it  is  about  very  ditFer- 
ent  matters  indeed,"  even  the  most  vital  and  fundamental 
elements  of  the  Christian  Church,  as  the  sequel  of  the  letter 
shows,*  Beza  concludes  by  saying,  "  such  is  the  state  of 
the  Anglican  Church,  exceedingly  miserable,  and  indeed, 
as  it  ap})ears  to  me,  intolerable."  We  might  quote  similar 
sentiments  from  other  continental  divines,  such  as  BuUinger 
and  Gualter,  and  may  perhaps  do  so  ere  we  close.  But 
since  the  opinions  of  the  Anglican  Reformers  themselves 
will  be,  in  the  circumstances,  of  more  importance,  and 
since  we  are  very  much  hampered  for  want  of  space, 
we  come  at  once  to  the  recorded  judgment  which  these 
great  and  gfjod  men  passed  upon  the  prayer-book  and  the 
Church  of  England. 

The  opinions  of  Grindal,  successively  bishop  of  I^ndon 
and  airchbishop  of  York  and  Canterbury  ;  of  Sandys,  suc- 
cessively bishop  of  Worcester  and  London,  and  archbishop 
of  York  ;  of  Parkburst  of  Norwich,  Pilkington  of  Durham, 
Jewell  of  Salisbury,  nnd  others,  we  need  not  refer  to,  as 
every  one  knows  that  they  expressed  themselves  as  strong- 
ly against  the  state  of  the  Anglican  Church  as  Sampson, 
Fox,  Coverdale,  or  Humphreys.  The  only  prelates  of  the 
first  set  appointed  by  Elizabeth  who  are  claimed  by  Angli- 
cans themselves,  as  having  been  in  favour  of  the  reformed 
condition  of  the  Church  of  England,  are  Archbishop  Parker, 
Cox  of  Ely,  and  Ilorne  of  Winchester,  (as  for  Cheney  of 
Gloucester  and  Bristol,  we  give  him  up  an  avowed  Papist,.) 
and  if  we  show  that  these  were  dissatisfied  with  the  condi- 
tion  of  the  Church  of  England,  even  her  apologists  must 
acknowledge  that  nil  Elizabeth's  first  prelates  desired  th-at 
that  Church  should  bo  further  reformed. 

Parker  was  one  of  the  compilers  of  the  prayer-book,  and 
we  have  already  seen  how  much  the  first  draft  excelled  the 
present  liturgy.  Even  after  it  bad  been  enjoined,  both  ijy 
parliamfcnt  and  the  queen,  that  the  communion  should  be 
received  kneeling,  Parker  administered  it  in  his  own  cathe- 
dral to  the  communicants  standing.]-  At  the  very  time 
when  he  was  pt'rsecuting  the  Puritans  for  nonconformity, 
(1575,)  he  wrote  Ce-cil,  "-Doth  your  lordship  think  that  I 

*  The  vicar  of  I^eeds  not  only  admits,  but  contends  that  Beza 
was  correct  in  slating  that  the  contention  entered  into  the  vital 
elements  of  Christianity.  See  Dr.  Hook*s  Sermon,  a  Call  to  Union, 
&c.,  2d  ed.,  74,  75. 

f  McCrie's  Life  of  Knox,  6ih  ed.,  p.  64,  note. 
32 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  29 

care  either  for  caps,  tippets,  surplices,  or  wafer  bread  or 
any  such  ?"*  And  Strype  says  expressly,  that  this  "  press- 
ing conformity  to  the  queen's  laws  and  injunctions,  pro- 
ceeded not  out  of  fondness  to  the  ceremonies  themselves," 
which  he  would  willingly  see  altered,  "  but  for  the  laws 
establishing  them  he  esteemed  them."f  "  It  may  fairly 
be  presun)cd,"  says  Bishop  Short,  "  that  Parker  himself 
entertained  some  doubts  concerning  the  points  which  were 
afterwards  disputed  between  the  Puritans  and  the  High- 
Church  party ;  for  in  the  questions  prepared  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  convocation  in  1563,  probably  under  his  own 
direction,  and  certainly  examined  by  himself,"  for  his  an- 
notations stand  yet  upon  the  margin  of  the  first  scroll, 
"  there  are  several  which  manifestly  imply  that  such  a  dif- 
ference of  opinion  might  prevail. "J  The  questions  here 
alluded  to  by  Bishop  Short  embrace  most  of  those  matters 
which  were  at  first  disputed  between  the  Puritans  and  con- 
formists. In  particular,  "  It  was  proposed  that  all  vest- 
ments, caps,  and  surplices,  should  be  taken  away  ;  that 
none  but  ministers  should  baptize ;  that  the  table  for  the 
sacrament  should  not  stand  altar-wise ;  that  organs  and 
curious  singing  should  be  removed  ;  that  godfathers  and 
godmothers  should  not  answer  in  the  child's  name ;"  and 
several  other  matters,  which  were  then  loudly  complained 
of,  but  which  remain  in  the  Church  of  England  till  this 
day.§  It  was  only  after  he  had  been  scolded  into  irritation 
by  the  queen,  after  his  morose  and  sullen  disposition  and 
despotic  temper  had  been  chafed  and  inflamed  by  the  re- 
sistance of  the  Puritans,  and  he  felt  or  fancied  that  his 
character  and  the  honour  of  his  primacy  were  in  jeopardy, 
that  Parker  committed  himself  to  that  course  of  persecution 
which  has  "  damned  his  name  to  everlasting  infamy." 
Had  he  even  the  inquisitor's  plea  of  conscience,  however 
unenlightened,  to  urge  in  his  own  defence,  some  apology, 
how  inadequate  soever,  might  be  made  for  him.  But 
Parker  was  a  persecutor  only  from  passion,  or  at  best  from 
policy. II  Parker  himself  then  was  inclined  to  a  further  re- 
formation of  the  Church  of  England. 

*  Strype's  Parker,  ii.  424.  f  Ibid.  p.  528. 

+  Sketch,  &c,,  p.  250. 

§  Burnet,  iii.  457,  458.     Strype's  Parker,  i.  386.     Rec.  No.  39. 

II  Bishop  Short  candidly  acknowledges,  that  "  when  Parker  and 

the  other  bishops  had  begun  to  execute  the  laws  against  noncon- 

fornoists,  they  must  have  been  more  than  men,"  or  less,  "if  they 

could  divest  their  own  minds  of  that  personality  which  every  one 

3*  33 


30  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

As  to  Cox  again:  in  a  letter  to  BuUinger,  in  1551,  we 
find  him  writing  thus ; — "  I  think  all  things  in  the  Church 
ought  to  be  pure  and  simple,  removed  at  the  greatest  dis 
lance  from  the  pomp  and  elements  of  the  world.  But  in 
this  our  Church  what  can  I  do  in  so  low  a  station?"  (he 
was  then,  if  we  rightly  remember,  only  archdeacon  of  Ely :) 
"  I  can  only  endeavour  to  persuade  our  bishops  to  be  of  the 
same  mind  with  myself.  This  1  wish  truly,  and  I  commit 
to  God  the  care  and  conduct  of  his  own  work."*  In  the 
following  year  we  find  him  complaining  bitterly  of  the  op- 
position of  the  courtiers  to  the  introduction  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline,  and  predicting  that  if  it  were  not  adopted,  "  the 
kingdom  of  God  would  be  taken  away  from  them."|  After 
his  return  from  exile,  he  joined  with  Grindal,  (whose  scru- 
ples in  accepting  a  bishopric  were  hushed  only  by  all  the 
counsels  and  exhortations  of  Peter  Martyr,  BuUinger,  and 
Gualter)!  and  the  other  bishops  elect  in  employing  the  most 
strenuous  efforts  to  effect  a  more  thorough  reformation  in 
the  Church  of  England,  before  they  should  accept  of  dio- 
ceses in  it.  When  they  found  that  they  could  not  succeed, 
they  seriously  deliberated  whether  they  could  accept  of  pre- 
ferments in  so  popish  a  Church.  At  last  they  were  in- 
duced to  yield  to  the  counsels  of  BuUinger  and  Gualter, 
and  other  continental  divines  whom  they  consulted,  because 
the  rites  imposed  were  not  in  themselves  necessarily  sinful; 
because  they  anticipated  that  when  elevated  to  the  mitre, 
they  should  have  power  to  effect  the  reformation  they  de- 
sired, and  because,  moreover,  by  occupying  the  sees  they 
might  exclude  Lutherans  and  Papists,  who  would  not  only 
not  reform,  but  would  bring  back  the  Church  still  further 
towards  Rome.§  Even  Cox,  then,  desired  further  reforma- 
tion in  the  Church  of  England,  and  was  so  dissatisfied  with 
its  condition,  that  notwithstanding  of  the  gold  and  power  it 
would  bestow,  (and  both  of  them  he  loved  dearly)  he  scru- 
pled to  accept  a  bishopric  within  its  pale.  When  we  bear 
in  mind  his  conduct  at  Frankfort,  and  his  subsequent  career 
in  England,  we  may  safely  conclude  that  the  Church  that 
was  too  popish  for  Cox  had  certainly  but  few  pretensions  to 
the  name  either  of  Reformed  or  Protestant. 

must  feel  when  engaged  in  a  controversy  in  which  the  question 
really  is,  whether  he  shall  be  able  to  succeed  in  carrying  his  plans 
into  execution."     Sketch,  &c.,  p.  251. 

»  Burnet,  iii.  303—4.  f  Strype's  Mem.  Ref.  ii.  366 

i  Strype's  Grindal,  41 — 44,  Ap.  No.  11. 

i  Strype's  An.  ii.  263.     Strype's  Grindal,  41—49,  438. 


THE    ANGLICAN    KEFORMATION.  31 

And  finally,  as  to  Home,  he  not  only  had  scruples  at 
first,  like  the  rest,  as  to  accepting  a  bishopric,  but  when  he 
found  that  the  reformation  he  anticipated  he  should  be  able 
to  effect  after  his  elevation  could  not  be  accomplished,  he 
deliberated  with  himself,  and  consulted  with  the  continental 
divines,  whether  it  did  not  become  his  duty  to  resign  his 
preferments.  In  conjunction  with  Grindal,  he  wrote  for 
advice  to  Gualter,  asking,  whether,  under  the  circumstances, 
he  thought  they  could  with  a  safe  conscience,  continue 
in  their  sees.  Gualter  induced  Bullinger,  whose  influence 
was  greater,  to  answer  the  question  submitted  to  him. 
Bullinger  accordingly  replied,  that  if,  upon  a  conscientious 
conviction,  it  should  appear  that,  upon  the  whole,  and  all 
things  considered,  it  were  better  to  remain,  then  it  became 
their  duty  to  occupy  their  places,  but  if  the  reverse,  then  it 
was  as  clearly  their  duty  to  renounce  them.  He  cautions 
them,  however,  against  imagining,  that  because  he  gives 
this  counsel,  he  therefore,  in  any  manner,  approved  of  the 
conduct  of  those  who  were  for  retaining  "  Papistical  dregs." 
On  the  contrary,  he  urges,  with  the  greatest  warmth,  that 
the  queen  and  the  rulers  of  the  nation  should  be  importuned 
to  proceed  further  with  the  Reformation,  and  that,  among 
other  reasons,  lest  the  Church  of  England  should  remain 
"  polluted  with  the  Popish  dregs  and  oflscourings,  or  afford 
any  ground  of  complaint  to  the  neighbour  Churches  of 
Scotland  and  France."  Further  information  on  this  sub- 
ject will  be  found  in  the  note  below.* 

*  Since  attempts  have  been,  and  are  still  made  to  represent  the 
divines  of  Zurich  as  having  been  satisfied  with  the  length  to 
which  reformation  was  carried  in  the  Church  of  England,  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  show  that  the  very  reverse  is  the  truth.  Those  who 
have  access  to  the  work,  and  can  read  the  language,  we  would  re- 
commend to  peruse  in  full  the  letters  sent  by  Grindal  and  Home 
to  Bullinger  and  Gualter,  and  the  answers  returned  by  these  di- 
vines, as  they  appear  in  Burnet's  Records,  B.  vi.  Nos.  75,  76,  82, 
83,  87.  Those  who  cannot  read  the  ori2:inal,  may  form  some 
idea  of  their  contents  from  the  translated  Summary,  iii.  pp.  462 — 
476. 

Grindal,  whose  scruples  were  never  removed,  and  who  therefore, 
wrote  frequently  and  anxiously  to  foreign  divines  to  obtain  their 
sanction  to  the  course  he  was  pursuing,  had,  in  conjunction  with 
Home,  written  to  Bullinger  and  Gualter,  requesting  further  coun- 
sel regarding  the  propriety  of  their  remaining  in  the  Church  of 
England.  Perceiving,  most  probably,  the  wounded  state  of  the 
consciences  of  their  brethren  in  the  Lord,  Bu.linger  and  Gualter 
wrote  a  soothing  reply,  saying  as  much  as  they  conscientiously 
could  in  favour  of  remaining  in  their  cures.     When  the  Anglican 

35 


32  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

Such,  then,  was  the  judgment  deliberately  formed  and 
often  repeated,  even  of  those  Anglican  High-Church  pre- 
lates, regarding  the  constitution  and  usages  of  the  Church 
of  England.     We  should  much  deepen  the  impression  we 

prelates  received  this  answer,  they  at  once  saw  that  the  judgment 
of  those  eminent  foreign  divines  would  go  far  to  stop  the  censures 
which  the  Puritans  pronounced  against  their  conforming  brethren  ; 
and  although  the  letter  was  strictly  private,  they  published  it.  As 
soon  as  Bullinger  and  Gualter  were  apprised  of  this  act,  they 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  Earl  of  Bedford,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Puritan  party,  complaining  of  the  breach  of  confidence  of  which 
Grindal  and  Home  had  been  guilty,  and  explaining  the  circum- 
stances in  which  their  letter  had  been  written,  deploring  that  it 
had  been  made  the  occasion  of  further  persecution  against  their 
dear  brethren  in  Christ  (the  Puritans,)  and  urging  upon  the  good 
Earl  to  proceed  strenuously  in  purifying  the  Church  of  England 
of  the  dregs  of  Popery,  which,  to  their  bitter  grief,  they  found 
were  still  retained  within  her.  When  Home  and  Grindal  learned 
the  feelings  of  their  continental  correspondents,  they  sent  them  a 
most  submissive  and  penitential  apology.  In  reply,  Bullinger 
and  Gualter  mentioned  several  of  those  errors  still  existing  in  the 
Church  of  England,  which  they  urged  all  her  prelates  to  reform; 
such  as  subscriptions  to  new  articles  of.faith  and  discipline,  theat- 
rical singing  in  churches,  accompanied  by  the  "crash  of  organs," 
baptism  by  women,  the  interrogations  of  sponsors,  the  cross,  and 
other  superstitious  ceremonies  in  baptism,  kneeling  at  the  com- 
munion, and  the  use  of  wafer  bread  (which  Strype  informs  us  was 
inade  like  the  "singing  cakes"  formerly  used  in  private  masses, 
Life  of  Parker,  ii.  32 — 5,)  the  venal  dispensations  fr)r  pluralites, 
and  for  eating  flesh  meat  in  Lent,  and  on  "fish  days,"  (which  dis- 
pensations were  sold  in  the  archbishop's  court,)  the  impediments 
thrown  in  the  way  of  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  the  prohibition 
to  testify  against,  to  oppose  or  refuse  conformity  to  those  abuses, 
the  restricting  all  ecclesiastical  power  to  the  prelates;  and  con- 
cluded by  imploring  them,  "in  the  bowels  of  Jesus  Christ,"  to 
purge  the  temple  of  God  from  such  Popish  abominations.  In 
reply  to  this  faithful  appeal,  poor  Grindal  and  Home  write  a  very 
penitent  and  submissive  letter,  which  we  cannot  read  over  at  this 
day  without  the  most  painful  emotion  at  the  condition  to  which 
these  men  of  God  were  reduced  between  their  desire  to  serve  God 
in  the  gospel  of  his  Son,  and  their  scruples  of  conscience  against 
the  antichristian  impositions  to  which  they  were  subjected.  The 
drift  of  their  letter  was  to  show  that  they  had  no  power  to  reform 
the  evils  complained  of,  (and  which  they  condemn  and  deplore  as 
much  as  their  correspondents,)  and  that  either  they  must  remain 
as  they  are,  or  abandon  their  benefices,  and  see  them  filled  by 
Papists,  who  would  destroy  the  flock  of  Christ.  In  conclusion, 
they  promise — but  we  must  give  their  promise  in  a  literal  transla- 
tion— "  We  shall  do  the  utmost  that  in  us  lies,  as  already  we  have 
done,  in  the  last  sessions  of  parliament  and  of  convocation,  and 
that,  even  although  our  future  exertions  should  be  as  fruitless  as 
36 


THE    ANGLICAN    RKFORM ATION.  33 

desire  to  produce  upon  our  readers,  had  we  space  also  to 
give  the  sentiments  of  the  more  evangelical  prelates  ;  of 
Parkhurst,  for  example,  who,  in  a  letter  to  Gualter  in  1573, 
fervently  exclaims, — "  Oh,  would  to  God,  would  to  God, 
that  now  at  last  the  people  of  England  would  in  good  earn- 
est propound  to  themselves  to  follow  the  Church  of  Zurich 
as  the  most  perfect  pattern  ;"  *  or  of  his  scholar  and  fellow- 
prelate  Jewell,  who  calls  the  habits  enjoined  upon  the  min- 
sters of  the  Church  of  England,  "  theatrical  vestments — • 
ridiculous  trifles  and  relics  of  the  Amorites,"  and  satirizes 
thcjse  who  submitted  to  wear  them  as  men  "  without  mind, 
sound  doctrine  or  morals,  by  which  to  secure  the  approba- 
tion of  the  people,  and  who,  therefore,  wished  to  gain  their 
plaudits  by  wearing  a  comical  stage-dress. "f  But  it  is 
unnecessary.  The  following  passage  from  a  High-Church 
writer  of  the  present  day  concedes  all  we  desire  to  estab- 
lish. After  having  condemned  the  Erastianism  of  Cran- 
mer,  and  the  want  of  what  he  terms  "  catholic"  feelin^jj  and 


the  past,  that  all  the  errors  and  abuses  which  yet  remain  in  the 
Church  of  England  shall  be  corrected,  expurgated  and  removed, 
according  to  the  rule  and  standard  of  the  word  of  God."  In  a 
preceding  part  of  their  letter  they  had  said,  that  "although  they 
might  not  be  able  to  effect  all  they  desired,  they  should  not  yet 
cease  their  exertions  until  they  had  thrust  down  into  hell,  whence 
they  had  arisen,"  certain  abuses  which  they  mention.  And  are 
these,  then,  the  men  who  are  to  be  regarded  as  approving  of 
the  extent  to  which  reformation  had  been  carried  in  the  Church  of 
Enjiland? 

We  have  given  the  seiitiments  of  the  divines  of  Zurich  at  the 
greater  length,  because  some  of  their  letters  are,  till  this  day,  per- 
verted, as  they  were  at  the  time  when  they  were  written.  Had 
this  been  done  only  by  Collier,  Heylin,  and  their  school,  we  should 
not  take  any  notice  of  it  in  our  present  sadly  limited  space,  liut 
when  such  writers  as  Slrype,  Cardwell,  and  Short,  lend  their 
names  to  palm  such  impositions  upon  the  public  mind,  it  is  ne- 
cessary at  once  to  show  what  was  the  real  s'ate  of  the  case.  Dr. 
McCrie  (Life  of  Knox,  note  R.)  has  charged  the  Anglican  prelates 
with  having  given  "partial  representations"  to  the  foreign  divines, 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  their  sanction  to  the  state  of  matters 
in  England:  and  any  man  of  competent  knowledge  of  the  subject, 
who  reads  over  their  letters,  must  be  painfully  aware,  that, 
although  they  may  not  have  designed  it,  yet,  as  was  so  very 
natural  in  their  circumstances,  they  did  write  in  a  manner  which 
could  not  but  lead  their  correspondents  into  the  grossest  mis- 
takes. 

*  Strype's  An.  ii.  286—342. 

f  See  many  such  passages  in  Dr.  McCrie's  note  last  referred  to, 
and  the  letters  in  Burnet's  Records. 

D  37 


34  THE    AXGLICAX    REFORMATION. 


spirit  in  his  coadjutors,  and  having  denounced  Hooper  a 
"  an  obstinate  Puritan— a  mere  dogged  Genevan  preacher," 
(the  most  opprc;brious  epithets  the  writer  can  bestow.)  an( 
Coverdale  as  a  "  thorough  Puritan  and  Genevan,  who  offi 
cjated  at  the  consecration  of  Archbishop  Parker  in  his  hlaci 
gown,''  (in  italics,  to  indicate  the  sacrilegious  profanatioi 
of  the  act — we  wonder  whether  it  invalidated  his  share,  oj 
the  whole  of  the  proceeding,)  the  writer  proceeds  thus: — 

"  The  immediate  successors,  however,  of  the  Reformers 
as  often  happens  in  such  cases,  went  further  than  thei: 
predecessors  did,  and  were  more  deeply  imbued  with  th( 
ieelings  of  the  day.  The  Episcopate,  in  the  first  part  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  were  successors  of  Hooper  anc 
Coverdale,  almost  more  than  they  were  of  Cranmer  anc 
Ridley  :  indeed,  it  was  only  her  strong  Tudor  arm  tha 
kept  them  within  decent  bounds,"  (that  is,  that  kept  then 
from  assnnilating  the  Church  of  England  to  the  other  Re- 
formed  Churches.)  «  The  greater  part  of  them  positively 
objected  to  the  surplice — including  Sandys,  Grindal,  Pil- 
kington,  Jewell,  Home,  Parkhurst,  Bentham,  and  all  the 
leadmg  men  who  were  for  simplifying  our  Church  ceremo 
nicd  in  that  and  other  respects,  according  to  the  Genevan, 
(that  is,  Presbyterian)  model;  Archbishop  Parker  almost 
standmg  alone  with  the  queen  in  her  determination  to  up- 
hold  the  former."  (And  we  have  already  seen  that  he  was 
about  as  little  enamoured  of  them  as  his  coadjutors.) 

After  having  referred  to  some  of  Jewell's  letters  to  the 
foreign  divines  written  against  the  Anglican  ceremonies, 
the  writer  makes  an  observation  which  ought  to  be  ever 
present  to  the  minds  of  those  who  read  the  censures  of 
Jewel  I  and  his  cotemporaries.  "  It  was  no  Roman  Catholic 
ritual,  we  rc[>eat,  of  which  he  thus  expressed  himself,  but 
our  own  doubly  reHirmed  prayer-book— the  divine  service 
as  j.mc  perjnrniedr  *  Who  now  are  the  lineal  descendants 
and  proper  representatives  of  the  Anglican  Reformers?— 
the  Puritans  who  desired  further  reformation,  or  those  who 
so  loudly  praise  our  «  Catholic  Church,  our  apostolic  es- 
tablishment," and  vigorously  resist  every  attempt  to  amend 
the  most  glaring  corruptions  in  the  Church  of  England? 
^Ve  wish  the  evangelical  party  would  ponder  the  aiiswer 
that  question  must  receive ;— we  say,  the  evangelical  party, 
for  we  are  aware  that  high  churchmen,  if  they  moved  at 
all,  would  move  in  the  direction  of  Rome. 

*  British  Critic  for  October  1842,  pp.  330,  331. 
38 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  35 

Having  thus  shown  the  opinions  of  the  prelates  regarding 
he  constitution  and  ceremonies  of  the  Church  of  England, 
3t  us  now  show  the  opinions  of  the  inferior  clergy  :  And 
lere  one  fact  may  stand  for  all.  In  the  year  1562,  a  peti- 
ion  was  presented  to  the  lower  house  of  convocation,  sign- 
d  by  thirty-two  members,  most  of  them  exiles,  and  the 
>est  men  in  the  kingdom,  praying  for  the  following  altera- 
ions  in  the  service  of  the  Church  of  England  :  1 .  That 
rgans  might  be  disused,  responses  in  the  "  reading  psalms" 
iscontinued,  and  the  people  allowed  to  sing  the  psalms  in 
netre,  as  was  the  custom  on  the  continent,  and  had  also 
cen  practised  by  the  English  exiles,  not  only  when  there, 
ut  after  they  had  returned  to  their  native  land,  and  as  was 
Iso  the  case  among  the  Puritans  when  they  non-conform- 
d  to  (for  they  never  seceded  or  dissented  from)  the  Church 
f  England,  of  which  they  could  never  be  said  to  have  been 
ona  fide  members.  2.  That  none  but  ministers  should 
e  allowed  to  baptize,  and  that  the  sign  of  the  cross  should 
e  abolished.  3.  That  the  imposition  of  kneeling  at  the 
ommunion  should  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  each  bishop 
1  his  own  diocese ;  and  one  reason  assigned  for  this  part 
f  the  petition  was,  that  this  posture  was  abused  to  idolatry 
y  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  populace.  4.  That  copes 
nd  surplices  should  be  disused,  and  the  ministers  made 
)  wear  some  come^ly  and  decent  garment,  (such  as  the 
Jeneva  gown,  which  all  the  early  Puritans  wore.)  5.  That, 
s  they  expressed  it  themselves,  "  The  ministers  of  the 
^ord  and  sacraments  be  not  compelled  to  wear  such  gowns 
nd  caps  as  the  enemies  of  Christ's  gospel  have  chosen  to 
e  the  special  array  of  their  priesthood."  6.  That  c€rtain 
Kords  in  Article  33,  be  mitigated,  which  have  since  been 
jmitted  altogether.  7.  That  saints'  days  might  be  abolish- 
|d,  or  kept  only  for  public  worship,  (and  not,  as  was 
len  the  case,  for  feasting,  jollity,  superstition,  and  sin,) 
fter  which  ordinary  labour  might  be  carried  on. 

This  petition  was  eventually  withdrawn,  and  another 
ery  much  to  the  same  pur{)ose  substituted   for  it.     This 

cond  petition  prayed  for  the  following  alterations: — 1. 
^hat  saints'  days  be  abolished,  but  all  Sundays,  and  the 
rincipal  feasts  of  Christ  be  kept  holy.  2.  That  the  liturgy 
e  read  audibly,  and  not  mumbled  over  inaudibly,  as  had 
een  done  by  the  massing  priests.  3.  That  the  sign  of  the 
ross  in  baptism  be  abolished  as  tending  to  superstition. 
.  That  kneeling  at  the  communion  be  left  to  the  discre- 
on  of  the  ordinary.     5.  That  ministers  may  use  only  a 

39 


36  THE    ANGLICAN    RF.FORJIATION. 

surplice,  or  other  decent  garment  in  public  worship,  and  the 
administration  of  the  sacraments.  6,  That  organs  be 
removed  from  churches. 

After  a  protracted  and  vigorous  debate,  these  articles 
were  put  to  the  vote,  when  forty-three,  most  of  them  exiles, 
voted  that  the  petition  be  granted,  and  only  thirty-five 
against  it  ;  thus  leaving  a  clear  majority  of  eight  in  favoui 
of  a  further  reformation.  When,  however,  proxies  were 
called  for,  only  fifteen  appeared  for,  while  twenty-four 
appeared  against  the  petition,  being,  on  the  whole,  fifty- 
eight  for,  and  fifty-nine  against,  leaving  a  majority  of  one 
for  rejecting  the  prayer  of  the  petition.* 

There  is  one  point  mentioned  in  the  minutes  of  convoca- 
tion, an  extract  from  which  is  given,  both  by  Burnet  anc 
Cardwell,  which  must  be  kept  in  view,  to  enable  us  to  ar- 
rive at  a  correct  conception  of  the  sentiments  of  those  who 
voted  against  the  above  articles.  In  the  minute,  it  is  dis- 
tinctly mentioned,  that  the  most  of  those  who  voted  agains 
granting  the  prayer  of  the  petition,  did  so,  not  upon  the 
merits,  but  only  from  a  feeling  that  since  the  matters  ir 
debate  had  been  imposed  by  public  authority  of  parliamen 
and  the  queen,  it  was  not  competent  for  convocation  to  take 
up  the  subject  at  all.  Thus,  the  motion  for  which  thej 
really  voted  was,  not  that  the  abuses  complained  of  shoulc 
be  continued,  but  that  the  convocation  had  no  power  to  altei 
them.  A  second  section  of  those  who  voted  against  thf 
articles,  was  composed  of  those  who  had  held  cures  unde: 
Edward,  and  had  a  hand  in  the  public  affairs  of  his  reign 
and  who,  having  remained  in  England  during  the  reign  of 
Mary,  had  not  seen  the  purer  churches  on  the  continent 
and  regarded  the  reformation  of  Edward  as  sufficientl} 
perfect.  A  third  section  of  the  majority  consisted  of  thos( 
who  held  benefices  under  Mary,  and  who  were  of  course 
Papists  in  their  hearts,  and  would  therefore  vote  agains 
any  further  reformation.  After  we  have  thus  analyzed  thf 
par-ies,  and  weighed,  instead  of  numbering,  the  votes,  anc 
"»vhen,  besides,  we  bear  in  mind  that  a  majority  of  thos( 
who  heard  the  reasoning  upon  the  matters  in  dispute,  vote( 
for  further  reformation,  it  is  easy  to  see  on  whose  side  trutl 
and  justice  lay. 

There  is,  besides,  another  point  to  which  Dr.  Cardwel 

*  Strype's  An.  i.  500—6.  Burnet  iii.  454,  455.  Records,  Bk 
vi.  No.  74.  Collier,  vi.  371—3.  Card  well's  Hist,  of  Coaf.  117- 
120. 

40 


THE    ANGLICAN    EEF0R3IATI0N.  37 


has  called  our  attention,*  which  we  regard  of  the  very 
highest  importance,  and  to  which,  consequently,  we  call 
the  special  attention  of  our  readers.  It  is  this,  that 
although,  since  the  time  of  Burnet  and  Strype,  it  has  been 
always  said  that  the  number  of  those  who  voted  for  the 
Articles  was  fifty-eight,  yet,  when  we  count  them  fairly, 
they  are  fifty-nine,  precisely  the  number  who  voted  against 
them.  Now,  if  we  give  the  prolocutor  (the  same  as  our 
moderator,)  a  casting  vote,  Nowell,  dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
who  was  prolocutor  of  that  convocation  and  voted  in  favour 
of  the  Articles,  and  would  of  course  give  his  casting  vote 
on  the  same  side,  this  would  give  a  majority  in  favour  of 
further  reformation. 

But  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  fact,  that,  if  thus  the 
numbers  were  equal,  that  fact  should  not  be  known  to  the 
members  ?  We  should  be  glad  to  hear  of  any  other  way 
of  solving  the  difficulty  ;  but  the  only  mode  of  doing  so 
that  occurs  to  us,  i,s  to  suppose  that  Parker  or  the  queen 
bad  recourse  to  the  artifice  employed  by  Charles  I.  in  the 
Scottish  parliament,  viz.,  concealed  the  roll  and  declared 
that  the  majority  was  in  their  favour,  while  it  was  against 
them,  as  was  clearly  seen  when  the  original  came  into  the 
hands  of  the  public.  That  Parker  was  capable  of  the 
manceuvre,  no  man  who  knows  his  character  can  for  one 
moment  question :  and  that  Elizabeth  would  feel  at  the 
least  as  little  scruple  in  doing  so  as  Charles  1.,  he  that 
doubts  may  consult  the  note  at  the  foot  of  the  page.t 

*  Cardwell's  Hist,  of  Cnnf.,  p.  120,  note. 

+  III  1559  a  bill  passed  through  parliament  authorizing  the  queen 
to  restore  to  their  former  cures,  such  of  the  returned  exiles  as  had 
been  unlawfully  deprived;  that  is,  by  Mary  on  account  of  their 
Protestantism.  "Yet,"  savs  Strype,  (Annals  i.  99,)  "  1  do  not  find 
it  was  enacted  and  passed  "into  law."  It  must  therefore  have  been 
clandestinely  suppressed  by  Elizabeth,  who  both  hated  and  feared 
the  Protestantism  of  the  exiles.  She  acted  very  much  in  the  same 
way  in  regard  to  the  re-enacting  of  Edward's  statute  in  favour  of 
cU-rical  marriages,  (Ibid.  118.)  The  convocaticm  of  1575,  among 
other  articles  of  reformation,  breathing  the  spirit  of  Grindal  who 
•was  just  then  raised  to  the  primacy,  passed  the  following,  that 
none  hut  ministers  lawfully  ordained  should  baptize,  and  that  it 
should  be  lawful  to  marrv  at  any  period  of  the  year:  but  Eliza- 
beih  cancelled  both,  (Strvpe's  Grindal,  290—1.)  We  need  not, 
however,  multiply  instances  in  which  Elizabeth  exercised  this 
power,  as  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  that  she  both  claimed  and 
exercised  it.  (Cardwell's  Documentary  Annals,  ii.  171 — 2,  note  ) 
The  case  most  in  point  is  the  following,  along  with  the  libert> 
we  have  already  seen  she  took  with  the  first  draft  of  the  liturgy 
d2  4  41 


38  THE    AXGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

From  this  induction  of  facts,  it  is  most  abundantly  mani- 
fest that  the  prelates  and  the  great  majority  of  the  leading 
members  of  the  lower  house  of  convocation,  were  de- 
cidedly in  favour  of  a  further  reformation.  It  only  further 
remains  to  finish  this  branch  of  our  argument,  that  we 
show  the  feelings  of  the  leading  statesmen  of  the  kingdom. 
This  may  be  done  in  the  following  passage  from  one  who 
is  certainly  a  competent  enough  witness  so  far  as  know- 
ledge is  concerned,  and  whom  no  one  will  accuse  of  any 
partiality  towards  the  Puritans.  After  stating  that  several 
of  the  bishops  were  in  favour  of  the  Puritans,  Hallam*  goes 
on  to  say, 

"  They"  the  Puritans,  "  had  still  more  effectual  support 
in  the  Queen's  council.  The  Earl  of  Leicester,  who  pos- 
sessed more  power  than  any  one  to  sway  her  wavering 
and  capricious  temper,  the  Earls  of  Bedford,  Huntington 
and  Warwick,  regarded  as  the  steadiest  Protestants  among 
the  aristocracy,  the  wise  and  grave  Lord  Keeper  Bacon, 
the  sagacious  Walsingham,  the  experienced  Sadler,  the 
zealous  KnoUvs,  cortsidered  these  objects  of  Parker's  se- 
verity (the  Puritans)  either  as  demanding  a  purer  worship 
than  had  been  established  in  the  Church,  or  at  least  as 
worthy,  by  their  virtues,  of  more  indulgent  treatment. 
Cecil  himself,  though  on  intimate  terms  with  the  arch- 
bishop, and  concurring  generally  in  his  measures,  was  not 
far  removed  from  the  latter  way  of  thinking,  if  his  natural 
caution  and  extreme  dread,  at  this  juncture,  of  losing   the 

Our  readers  are  aware  of  the  controversy  as  to  how  the  celebrated 
clause,  ("The  Church  hath  power  to  decree  rites  and  ceremonies, 
and  authority  in  controversies  of  faith,")  crept  into  the  Twentieth 
Article  of  the  Church  of  England,  when  it  occurs  neither  in  the 
first  printed  edition  of  the  Articles,  nor  in  the  draft  of  them  which 
was  passed  by  convocation,  and  which  is  still  in  existence,  with 
the  autograph  signatures  of  the  members.  It  is  now  the  universal 
belief  that  Elizabeth  inserted  this  clause,  as  well  as  cancelled 
the  whole  of  the  Thirty-ninth  Article,  whose  title  sufficiently 
indicates  its  contents,  viz.  "the  ungodly  (ir/ipii)  do  not  eat  the 
bcpdy  of  Christ  in  the  sacrament  of  the  supper,"  a  dogma  which 
Elizabeth,  who  believed  in  transubstantiation,  could  not  admit. 
(See  Lamb's  Historical  and  Critical  Essay  on  the  the  thirty-nine 
Articles,  p.  35,  &c.  Cardwell's  Hist,  of  Conf  21,  22,  note.  Card- 
well's  Synodalia,  i.  38,  39,  note.  Cardwell's  Doc.  An.  ii.  171, 
note.  Bishop  Short's  Sketch,  &c.  327,  note.)  The  person  who 
could  thus  act  was  certainly  capable  of  i"alsifying  the  votes  of  con- 
vocation, 1562. 

*  Constitutional  Hist,  of  England,  i.  256,  257. 
42 


THE    ANGLICAN    T^EFORW  VTION.  39 

Queen's  favour,  had  permitted  liim  more  unequivocally  to 
express  it." 

Mr.  Hallam  by  no  means  does  full  justice  to  the  senti- 
ments of  Cecil.  No  one  can  read  his  correspondence  with 
the  Puritans,  and  his  private  letters  to  the  prelates,  without 
being  satisfied  that  that  great  statesman  fully  concurred  in 
all  the  general  principles  of  the  former. 

Jn  regard  again  to 

"The  upper  ranks  among  the  laity,  setting  aside  cour- 
tiers and  such  as  took  little  interest  in  the  disputes,"  these, 
says  Mr.  Hallam,  "  were  chiefly  divided  between  those 
attached  to  the  ancient  Church,  and  those  who  wished 
ibr  further  reformation  in  the  new.  I  conceive  the  Church 
of  England  party,  that  is,  the  party  adverse  to  any  species 
of  ecclesiastical  change,  to  have  been  the  least  numerous 
of  the  three,  (that  is,  Puritan,  Popish,  and  Anglican,) 
durin<T  this  reign,  still  excepting,  as  I  have  said,  the  neu- 
trals  who  commonly  make  a  numerical  majorit}^,  and  are 
counted  aloni{  with  the  dominant  religion.  .  .  .  The 
Puritans,  or  at  least  those  who  rather  favoured  them,  had 
a  majority  among  the  Protestant  gentry  in  the  Queen's 
days.  It  is  agreed  on  all  hands  (and  is  quite  manifest) 
that  they  predominated  in  the  House  of  Commons.  But 
that  house  was  (then)  composed,  as  it  has  ever  been,  of 
the  principal  landed  proprietors,  and  as  much  represented 
the  general  wish  of  the  community  when  it  demanded  a 
liirther  reform  in  religious  matters,  as  on  any  other  sub- 
jects. One  would  imagine  by  the  manner  in  which  some 
(that  is  unscrupulous  high  churchmen)  express  them- 
selves, that  the  discontented  were  a  small  fraction,  who,  by 
some  unaccountable  m.eans,  in  despite  of  the  government 
and  the  nation,  forined  a  majority  of  all  the  parliaments 
under  Elizabeth  and  her  two  successors." 

Who  now,  then,  constituted  the  real  Church  of  England 
pnrty  .'  Elizabeth  chiefly— a  host  in  herself — aided  by  al! 
the  Popish,  immoral  and  irreligious  persons  in  the  kingdom^ 
whether  lay  or  clerical. 

Lest  our  readers  should  fancy  that  w^e  have  been  all  this 
time  describing  merely  the  transition  state  of  the  Church 
of  England  before  she  became  fully  organized  as  she  is 
now  established, — a  state  which  is  interesting  in  the  pre- 
sent day  only  as  it  serves  to  indicate  to  a  philosophic  in- 
quirer, in  the  same  manner  as  a  fossil  does  to  a  compara 
tive  anatomist  the  bygone  condition  of  some  primeval  state 
of  society ; — in   order  to  prevent  such  a  mistake,  we  beg 

43 


40  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

leave  to  remind  our  readers  that  we  are  describing  the 
present  constitution  of  the  Church  of  England  as  by  law 
established.  The  acts  of  supremacy  and  uniformity  are 
still  in  operation,  and  the  Anglican  Church,  in  all  the  princi- 
ples on  which  it  was  based,  and  in  all  points  of  practical 
importance,  continues  as  it  stood  at  the  death  of  Elizabeth. 
Nay,  we  hesitate  not  to  assert,  that  it  is  now  nearer  to  the 
Church  of  Rome  than  it  was  then.  Of  all  the  alterations 
demanded  by  the  Puritans,  the  only  one  of  any  practical 
moment  was  made  at  the  Hampton  Court  conference,  when 
the  *'  royal  theologian,"  certainly  not  to  please  the  Puri- 
tans, forbade  any  but  ministers  to  administer  baptism. 
But  this  improvement  is  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the 
anti-protestant  alterations  made  upon  the  prayer-book  by 
the  convocation  of  1661,  and  that  for  the  express  purpose 
of  rendering  it  for  ever  impossible  for  the  Presbyterians  to 
think  of  entering  the  Church  of  England.  Of  these  altera- 
tions, one  may  be  mentioned  as  showing  the  a7iimiis  of 
that  convocation,  next  to  that  of  1689,  the  most  infamous, 
not  even  excepting  that  of  1640,  that  ever  assembled  in 
England.  Down  to  that  period  there  was  comparatively 
but  little  of  the  apocrypha  prescribed  in  the  calendar,  and 
even  that  little,  by  an  "  admonition"  prefixed  to  the  Second 
Book  of  Homilies  in  1564,  the  officiating  clergyman  was 
not  only  authorized  to  omit  and  substitute  in  its  place  some 
more  suitable  portion  of  canonical  Scripture,  but  he  was 
recommended  to  do  so.*  The  convocation  of  1661,  how- 
ever, and  the  act  of  uniformity  based  upon  their  proceed- 
ings, not  only  introduced  other  portions  of  the  apocrypha 
into  the  daily  lessons,  but  rendered  it  imperative  upon 
every  clergyman  to  read  them.f  We  have  paid  some  little 
attention  to  the  subject,  and  have  no  fear  that  we  shall  be 
contradicted  by  any  competent  judge,  when  we  affirm  that 
the  constitution  and  formularies  of  the  Church  of  England 
are  now  less  Protestant  than  they  were  left;  by  Parker, 
Whitgift,  and  Elizabeth.  The  progress  -of  enlightened 
opinions,  and  the  influence  of  a  close  contact  with  the 
evangelism  of  the  Anglican  non-conformists,  and  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  have,  it  must  not  be  concealed,  to 
some  extent,  practically  modified  the  constitutional  influence 

*  Cardwell's  Hist,  of  Conf.  21,  22,  note. 

j-  Cardwell's  Hist,  of  Conf.  378 — 392,  where  the  various  altera- 
tions then  made  in  the  liturgy  may  be  read  at  large,  or  the  "Syno- 
dalia"  by  the  same  writer,  ii.  633 — 686,  where  copious  extracts 
from  the  original  minute  may  be  seen. 
44 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  41 

of  the  Anglican  formularies.  But  how  slight  the  influence 
of  these  disturbing  causes  upon  the  minds  of  Anglican 
churchmen  is,  in  comparison  with  the  intense  onomentmn 
of  their  own  constitution,  may  be  estimated  by  any  man 
who  will  study  the  history  of  Laud  and  his  times,  the  his- 
tory of  the  Restoration,  of  the  Revolution,  and  in  our  own 
times,  ponder  over  the  unparalleled  rapidity  with  which 
Puseyism  has  circulated,  the  wide  spread  ramification,  and 
the  all  but  universal  reception  to  which  it  has  already 
attained;  a  circumstance  that  must  be  unaccountable  to 
those  who  are  unacquainted  with  the  constitution  and  his- 
tory of  the  Church  of  England,  but  of  the  easiest  possible 
solution  to  those  who  are.  Challenging  contradiction,  we 
once  more  affirm  that,  without  altering  one  single  canon, 
injunction,  or  rubric,  or  displacing  one  clause  in  her  con- 
stitution, nay,  only  honestly  and  constitutionally  carrying 
them  out  to  their  legitimate  consequences  and  practical 
results,  the  Church  of  England  might  be  made  so  to  ap- 
proximate to  the  Church  of  Rome,  that  it  might  matter 
little  to  a  real  Bible  Protestant  into  which  of  them  he  might 
be  required,  under  pain  of  persecution,  to  incorporate  him- 
self. Had  the  Puseyite  leaders,  instead  of  moving  forward 
as  they  have  avowedly  done  to  take  their  stand  upon  the 
principles  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  contented  themselves 
with  working  out  the  constitutional  though  partially  dor- 
mant principles  of  the  Church  of  England,  their  success 
would  be  all  but  certain.  If  they  are  ever  defeated,  it  must 
be  through  the  consequences  to  which  this  false  movement 
must  inevitably  lead.  The  once  all  dominant  cry — "No 
Popery,"  is  not  yet  so  powerless,  despite  of  all  that  has 
happened,  but  that  many  men  who  would  blindly  embrace 
whatever  was  proved  to  be  bona  fide  Church-oi-England- 
ism,  will  be  shocked  when  required  openly  to  embrace  un- 
disguised Romanism. 

We  have  found,  then,  that  without  a  single  exception, 
all  the  first  prelates  of  Elizabeth  were  dissatisfied  with  the 
constitution  of  the  Church  of  England;  that  the  most  of 
them  deliberated  long  and  painfully  before  they  could  be 
induced  to  accept  preferments  within  her  pale ;  and  that 
the  motive  which  principally  induced  them  to  conform  was 
a  hope  that  they  might  thus  be  able  to  complete  the  Refor- 
mation.*    There  were  others,  however,  still  more  enlight- 

*  So  litde  was  Cranmer  satisfied  with  the  state  of  the  Church  of 
England  in  his  day,  that  he  "  had  drawn  up  a  book  of  prayers  an. 
4*  45 


42  THE  ANGLICAN  REFORMATION. 

ened,  who  saw  further  into  the  intentions  of  Elizabeth,  and 
who  would  not  accept  of  any  benefice  in  the  Anglican 
Church  until  they  saw  her  further  reformed.  Among 
these,  not  to  speak  of  those  who  are  known  as  avowed 
Puritans,  may  be  mentioned  Bishop  Coverdale,*  and  Fox 
the  martyrologist.  Parker  used  every  means  to  induce 
Fox  to  conform,  in  order  that  the  great  influence  of  his 
name  might  prevail  upon  others  to  follow  his  example. 
"  But  the  old  man,  producing  the  New  Testament  in  Greek, 
*  To  this,'  saith  he,  '  I  will  subscribe.'  But  when  a  sub- 
scription to  the  canons  was  required  of  him,  he  refused, 
saying,  '  I  have  nothing  in  the  Church  save  a  prebend  at 
Salisbury,  and  much  good  may  it  do  you  if  you  will  take 
away.'  "  "I"  The  best  part  of  the  inferior  clergy  again,  who 
conformed,  did  so  in  the  hope  that  the  prelates  whom  they 
knew  to  be  of  their  own  sentiments  would,  now  that  they 
were  elevated  to  places  of  power,  be  able  to  accomplish 
the  further  reformation  which  all  so  very  ardently  desired. 
Of  all  the  true  Protestants,  not  one  would  have  consented 
to  accept  a  preferment  in  the  Anglican  Church,  if  he  had 
been  at  the  outset  aware  that  no  further  reformation  was 
to  be  accomplished.  What,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  con- 
tinued to  retain  them  in  her  communion,  when  they 
found  that  they  could  not  reform  that  Church?  It  is  a 
delicate  question,  but  we  have  no  hesitation  in  rendering  an 
answer. 

The  deteriorating  influ^^nce  of  high  stations  of  honour, 
power,  and  wealth,  has  been  rendered  proverbial  by  the' 
experience  of  mankind  ;  but  never  was  it  more  disastrously 
manifested  than  by  Elizabeth's  first  bishops.:}:  Not  one  of 
them   had   escaped   the   corrupting   influence   of  their  sta- 

handred  times  more  perfect  than  that  which  was  then  in  being," 
(Edward's  Second  Liturgy,)  and  if  the  king  had  been  spared  a  little 
longer,  it  is  agreed  on  all  hands,  it  would  have  been  introduced 
along  with  many  other  alterations.  See  Dr.  Cardweli's  Two 
Prayer-Books,  &c.  Compared,  preface,  34 — 6.  And  yet  the  pre- 
sent prayer-book,  as  we  have  seen,  is  more  Popish  than  that  which 
Cranmer  would  reform. 

*  Strype's  Ann.  ii.  43;  Life  of  Parker,  i.  295,  297. 

I  Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.  ii.  475. 

i  Cecil,  writing  to  Whitgift  about  filling  up  some  bishoprics 
.hen  vacant,  says,  "  he  saw  such  worldliness  in  many  that  were 
otherwise  affected  before  they  came  to  cathedral  churches,  that 
he  feared  the  places  altered  the  men."  Strype's  Whitgift,  i.  338. 
He  makes  very  much  the  same  complaint  to  Grindal  in  1575- 
Strype's  Grindal,  28  L 
46 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  43 

tions.*  Having  so  far  overcome  the  scruples  they  at  first 
entertained  against  conformity,  not  it  must  be  feared  with- 
out doing  violence  to  their  convictions,  it  was  but  natural 
that  they  should  entertain  not  the  most  kindly  feelings 
towards  those  whose  consistency  of  conduct  not  only  would 
degrade  them  in  their  own  eyes,  but  open  up  afresh  the 
wounds  yet  raw  in  their  consciences.  The  apostate  is 
ever  the  most  vindictive  persecutor  of  his  former  brethren. 
Besides,  no  one  can  tail  to  have  noticed,  that  when  a  man 
has  irretrievably  committed  himself  to  a  cause  which  he 
formerly  opposed,  he  is  compelled,  by  the  necessity  of  his 
position,  to  become  more  stringent  and  inflexible  in  his 
proceedings,  than  the  man  who  is  now  pursuing  only  the 
course  on  which  he  tirst  embarked.  Bishop  Short,  in  a 
passage  already  quoted,  has  candidly  admitted,  that  "  when 
Parker  and  the  other  bishops  had  begun  to  execute  the  laws 
against  non-conformists,  they  must  have  been  more  than 
men  if  they  could  divest  their  own  minds  of  that  person- 
ality which  every  one  nnust  feel  when  engaged  in  a  contro- 
versy in  which  the  question  really  is,  whether  he  shall  be 
able  to  succeed  in  carrying  his  plans  into  execution." 
We  could  assign  other  reasons  for  the  conduct  of  Eliza- 
beth's first  bishops,  but  we  entertain  too  high  a  regard  for 
what  they  had  been,  to  take  any  pleasure  in  exposing  their 
faults. 

What  now  would  these  great  and  good  men  do  were 
they,  with  their  avowed  principles,  when  they  returned 
from  exile,  to  appear  in  our  day  ?  Would  they  praise  the 
Church  of  England  as  "  our  primitive  and  apostolic  Church, 
— the  bulwark  of  the  Reformation, — the  safeguard  of  Pro- 
testantism, and  the  glory  of  Christendom,"  as  some  who 
boast  of  being  their  successors  continue  to  do?  Would 
they  even  accept  cures  in  the  Church  of  England,  know- 
ing, as  all  her  ministers  now  do,  that  no  further  reforma- 
tion is  so  much  as  to  be  mooted, — nay,  that  it  must  not 
be  so  much  as  acknowledged  that  it  is  Tequired  ?  He 
knows  neither  the  constitution  of  the  Church  of  England, 
nor  the  character  of  the  reformers,  who  hesitates  for  one 
moment  to  answer,  and  with  the  most  marked  emphasis, 
iheij  icoiild  not. 

And  what  a  lesson  of  solemn  warning  do  the  conse- 
quences of  a  compromise  of  principles,  as  seen  in  the  sub- 

*  See  a  painful  letter  on  this  subject  from  Sampson  to  GrindaL 
Strype's  Parker,  ii.  376,  377. 

47 


44  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

sequent  history  of  the  Church  of  England,  read  to  our  own 
ministers  in  their  present  arduous  struggle  !  The  second 
set  of  bishops  appointed  by  Elizabeth  were,  without  a  single 
exception,  men  ot"  more  Erastian  sentiments,  of  more  lax. 
theology,  of  more  Popish  tendencies,  than  their  predeces- 
sors. The  first  prelates  had  been  trained  amid  the  ad- 
vancing reformation  of  Edward,  and  among  the  Presbyte- 
rians on  the  continent,  and  had  imbibed  the  sentiments  of 
their  associates.  But  their  successors  had  been  trained  in 
the  Church  of  England,  and  bore  the  impress  of  her  char- 
acter. And  such  would  also  be  the  case  in  our  own 
Church,  were  our  ministers,  by  an  unhallowed  submission, 
to  yield  to  the  antichristian  invasion  of  the  Church's  rights 
and  liberties  now  attempted.  To  these  our  ministers,  God 
hns  committed  a  glorious  cause.  May  they  be  found 
worthy  to  maintain  it.  Their  deeds  are  before  men  and 
angels.  Future  historians  shall  record  their  acts,  and  in- 
scribe their  names  in  the  glorious  muster-roll  of  martyrs 
and  confessors,  or  denounce  them  to  eternal  infamy. 
We  shall  watch  their  proceedings  with  an  interest  which 
the  shock  of  armed  empires  would  not  excite  in  our  bosoms, 
and,  by  God's  grace,  shall  lend  our  aid  to  make  known  to 
posterity  how  they  have  fought  the  good  fight  and  kept  the 
faith.  The  arena  of  their  struggle  may  appear  obscure 
and  contracted.  But  it  is  the  Thermopylae  of  Christen- 
dom. On  them,  and  on  their  success,  under  God,  it  de- 
pends, whether  worse  than  Asiatic  barbarism  and  despotism 
are  to  overwhelm  Europe,  or  light,  and  life,  and  liberty, 
to  become  the  birthright  of  the  nations.  May  the  Captain 
of  the  host  of  Israel  ever  march  forward  at  their  head. 
May  the  blue  banner  of  the  covenant,  unstained  by  one 
blot,  be  victorious  in  their  hands,  as  it  was  of  yore.  May 
the  sword  of  the  Lord,  and  of  Gideon,  now  unsheathed, 
never  return  to  its  scabbard,  until  the  Church  of  Scotland 
shall  have  vindicated  her  rights,  and  established  her  liber- 
ties on  an  immovable  basis.  No  surrender  !  No  compro- 
mise !  Better  the  mountain  side,  like  our  fathers,  and 
freedom  of  communion  with  our  God,  than  an  Erastian 
establishment,  which  would  no  longer  be  a  Church, — 
than  a  sepulchral  temple,  from  which  the  living  God  had 
fled. 

We  return  from  this  digression,  (for  which  we  make  no 
apology, — we  would  despise  the  man  that  would  require  it,) 
to  relate  the  internal  condition  of  the  Church  of  England  at 
and  after  the  accession  of  Elizabeth. 
48 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  45 

One  fact  will  prove,  to  every  man  who  regards  "  Christ 
crucified  as  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God  unto 
salvation,"  that  the  Church  of  England  was  at  this  time  in 
the  most  wretched  condition  imaginablo,  both  moral  and 
spiritual.  Of  nine  thousand  four  hundred  clergymen,  of 
all  grades,  then  beneficed  in  that  Church,  and  all,  of  course. 
Papists,  being  the  incumbents  of  Mary's  reign,  only  one 
hundred  and  ninety-two,  of  whom  only  eighty  were  paro- 
chial, resigned  their  livings;  the  rest,  as  much  Papists  as 
ever,  and  now,  in  addition,  unblushing  hypocrites,  who 
subscribed  what  they  did  not  believe,  and  submitted  to 
what  they  could  not  approve,  remained  in  their  cures,  and 
became  the  mmisters  of  the  Protestant  (?)  Church  of  Eng- 
land."* We  should  do  these  nine  thousand  two  hundred 
and  eight  who  remained  in  their  cures,  an  honour  to  which 
they  have  no  claim,  were  we  to  compare  them  to  the 
most  ignorant,  scandalous,  and  profligate  priesthood  at 
present  in  Europe.  Many  of  them  did  not  understand  the 
Dffices  they  had  been  accustomed  to  "  mumble"  at  the 
altar.  Some  of  them  could  not  sign  their  names,  or  even 
read  the  Eni^lish  liturgy.  Yet  into  the  hands  of  these  men 
:lid  Elizabeth  and  her  prelates  commit  the  immortal  souls 
)f  the  people  of  England.  And  if  at  any  time  the  people, 
shocked  at  the  immoralities  and  papistry  of  their  parish 
[iriest,  attended  ordinances  under  some  more  Protestant 
Tfiinister  in  the  neighbourhood,  they  were  compelled,  by 
jines  and  imprisonment,  to  return  to  their  own  parish 
phurch. 

When  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  several  of  these 
)ppistico-protestant  priests  had  died,  and  others  of  them 
lad  fled  out  of  the  kingdom,  there  were  no  properly  quali- 
ied  ministers  to  replace  them.  Patrons  sold  the  benefices 
o  laymen,  retaining  the  best  part  of  the  fruits  in  their  own 
lands.  Thus  the  parishes  remained  vacant.  Strype, 
peaking  of  the  state  of  the  diocese  of  Bangor  in  156o, 
ays,  "  As  for  Bangor,  that  diocese  was  much  out  of  order, 
here  being  no  preaching  used."  And  two  years  after- 
wards the  bishop  wrote  to  Parker,  that  "  he  had  but  two 
Teachers  in  his  whole  diocese,"  the  livings  being  in  the 

*  The  following  is  Strype's  list  of  those  who  resigned, — viz.,  14 
ishnps,  18  deans,  14  archdeacons,  15  heads  of  colleges,  50  pre- 
endaries,  80  rectors,  6  abbots,  priors,  and  abbesses,  in  all  193 
innals,  i.  106.  Burnet,  ii.  620,  makes  them  only  189.  Collier 
i.  p.  252,  following,  as  is  his  wont.  Popish  authorities,  when 
ley  can  add  credit  to  their  own  Church,  makes  them  about  250. 
E  49 


46  TPIE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

hands  of  laymen.*  In  1562  Parkhurst  of  Norwich  wrote 
Parker,  in  answer  to  the  inquiries  of  the  privy  council, 
that  in  his  dioc<?se  there  were  434  parish  churches  vacant, 
and  that  many  chapels  of  ease  had  fallen  into  ruins.t  Cox 
of  Ely,  in  1560,  wrote  the  archbishop,  that  in  his  diocese 
there  \vere  150  cures  of  all  sorts,  of  which  only  "52  were 
duly  served,"— many  of  them,  of  course,  only  by  readers, 

;34  were  vacant,  I'S  had  neither  rector  nor  vicar,  and  57 

were  possessed  by  non-residents.  "  So  pitiable  and  to  be 
lamented,"  exclaims  Cox,  "is  the  face  of  this  diocese; 
and  if,  in  other  places,  it  be  so  too,"  (and  so  it  was,) 
"  most  miserable  indeed  is  the  condition  of  the  Church  ot 
England,"!  We  never  can  think  of  the  condition  of  Eng- 
land,— when  thus  darkness  covered  the  earth,  and  thick 
darkness  the  people,  and  when,  emphatically,  the  blind 
led  the  blind,— without  admiring  gratitude  to  that  God  who 
did  not  altogether  remove  his  candlestick,  and  leave  the 
whole  nation  to  perish,  through  the  crimes  of  their  rulers, 
civil  and  ecclesiastical. 

In  order  to  keep  the  churches  open,  and  afford  even  the 
semblance  of  public  worship  to  the  people,  the  prelates 
were  compelled  to  license,  as  readers,  a  set  of  illiterate 
mechanics,  who  were  able  to  read  through  the  prayer, 
without  spelling  the  hard  words.§  The  people,  however 
could  not  endure  these  immoral,  base-born,  illiterate  read 
ers;  and  then,  as  if  the  mere  act  of  ordination  could  confe 
upon  them  all  the  requisite  qualifications,  "  not  a  few  me 
ch^1nir•s,  aUog(;th(3r  as  unlearned  as  the  most  objectionabk 
of  those  ejecTed,  were  preferred  to  digniiies  and  livings." 
The  scheme,  however  [)olific,  failed,  through  the  indecorou 
manners,  and  the  immoral  lives,  and  the  gross  ignorance 
of  these  upstart  priests.!!  And  then  an  order  was  issuci 
to  the  bishop  of  London  to  ordain  no  more  mechanics 
because  of  the  scandals  they  had  brought  upon  religion  ;'"• 
hut  the  necessity  of  the  case  compelled  the  provincia 
bishops  still  to  employ  lay  readers,  and  ordain  mechanic 
to  read  the  prayers. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  England  when  Parker,  parti 
goaded  on  by  the  queen,  and  partly  by  his  own  sulle 
despotism,  commenced  a  course    of  persecutions,  susper 

*  Strype's  Parker,  i.  404,  509.  §  Strype's  An.  i.  202,  203. 

t  Strype's  An.  i.  539,  540.  11  Colher,  vi.  264. 

1  Strype's  Parker,  i.  143,  144.  1  Sirype's  Parker,  i.  180. 

**  Strype's  Grindal,  60.  Collier,  vi.  313. 
50 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  47 

ions,  and  silencing  against  the  Puritans,  who  were  the 
>nly  preachers  in  the  kingdom.  In  January  1564,  eight 
vere  suspended  in  the  diocese  of  London.  It  was  hoped 
hat  this  example  would  overawe  the  rest,  and  three  months 
ilterwards  tlie  London  clergy  were  summoned  again  to 
ubscribe  to  the  canons,  and  conform  to  all  the  usages  of 
he  Church  of  England;  but  thirty  refused,  and  were,  of 
;ourse,  suspended.*  A  respite  of  eight  months  was  given 
o  the  rest;  and  then  in  January  15(35  they  were  cited, 
ir-d  thirty-seven  having  refused  to  subscribe,  were  sus- 
M'nded.f '  These,  as  we  may  well  believe,  were,  even  in 
he  estimation  of  Parker  himself,  and,  indeed,  as  he  ac- 
knowledged, the  best  men  and  the  ablest  preachers  in  the 
liocese.ij:  The  insults  offered,  and  the  cruelties  inflicted 
ipon  these  men,  would,  had  we  space  to  detail  them, 
ntensate  the  indignation  of  our  readers  against  their  rulh- 
ess  persecutors. 

The  silencing  of  such  preachers,  and  the  consequent 
lesolation  in  the  Church  excited  the  attention  of  the  nation. 
Ml  men  who  had  any  regard  for  the  ordinances  of  Cxod, 
vere  shocked  at  the  proceedings  of  the  primate,  and  bitter 
complaints  were  made  of  him  to  the  privy  coimcil.  Eliza- 
3eth  herself  ordered  Cecil  to  write  him  on  the  subject. 
Parker  sullenly  replied,  that  this  was  nothing  more  than 
le  had  foreseen  from  the  first,  and  that  when  the  queen 
lad  ordered  him  to  press  uniformity,  "  he  had  told  her, 
:hat  these  precise  folks  would  offer  their  goods,  and  even 
:heir  bodies  to  prison,  rather  than  they  would  relent."§ 
And  yet  Parker,  who  could  anticipate  their  conduct,  could 
[leither  appreciate  their  conscientiousness,  nor  respect  their 
firmness. 

The  persecutions  commenced  in  London  soon  spread 
over  the  whole  kingdom.  We  have  already  seen  the  most 
destitute  condition  of  the  diocese  of  Norwich,  in  which 
four  hundred  and  thirty-four  parish  churches  were  vacant, 
and  many  chapels  of  ease  fallen  into  ruins.  Will  it  be 
credited,  that  in  these  circumstances  thirty-six  ministers, 
almost  the  whole  preaching  ministers  in  the  diocese,  were, 
in  one  day,  suspended,  for  refusing  subscription  to  the  anti- 
christian  impositions  of  the  prelates  ?||  This  is  but  a  speci- 
men of  what  took  place  throughout  the  kingdom.  And 
when   the   people,  having    no   pastor  to  teach    them,  met 

*  Strype's  Grindal,  144,  146.  f  H'id-  l-''4. 

i  Sirype's  Parker,  i.  429.         §  Ibid.  i.  448.  11  Ibid.  u.  341. 

51 


48  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

together  to  read  the  Scriptures^  forthwith  a  thunderinx^  edict 
came  down  from  the  primate,  threatening  them  with  fines 
and  imprisonment  it"  they  dared  to  pray  together  or  read 
the  word  of  God.     In  a  certain  small  village  a  revival  took 
place,  under  the  ministrations  of  a  reader,  so  illiterate  that 
he  could  not  sign  his  own  name.     As  always  happens  under 
such   circumstances,   the    people   formed   fellowship    meet- 
ings.    No  sooner  was  this    known  than  they  were  sum- 
moned to  answer  for  such   violations  of  canonical  order. 
In  a  simple  memorial,  which  would  melt  a  heart  of  stone, 
these  pious  peasants  stated  to  the  inquisitors,  that  they  only 
met  together   in   the  evenings,  after  the  work   of  the  day 
was  over,  to  devote    the    time  they  formerly  misspent  in  | 
dritiking  and  sin,  to  the  worship  of  God  and  the  reading  -1 
of  his  word.     Their  judges  were  deaf  to  their  petitions  and   ] 
representations,  and  forbade  them  absolutely  to  meet  any  | 
longer  for  such  purposes,  leaving  it  to  be  inferred,  by  no   ■ 
far-fetched  deductions,  that  a  man  might  violate  the  laws 
of  God,  with  impunity  ;  but  woe  be  unto  him  that  should 
break  the  injunctions  of  the  prelates.* 

And  what  was  the  crime  for  which  these  Puritans  were 
suspended,  sequestered,  fined,  imprisoned,  and  some  of 
them  put  to  death?  Simply  because  they  would  not 
acknowledge  that  man,  whether  prelate,  primate,  or  prince, 
lias  authority  to  alter  the  constitution  of  God's  Church,  to 
prescribe  rites  and  modes  of  "  will-worship,"  and  adminis- 
tration of  sacraments,  different  from  what  He  had  appoint- 
ed in  his  word.  Nothing  but  gross  ignorance,  or  grosser 
dishonesty,  will  lead  any  man  to  say,  as  has  been  said, 
and  continues  to  be  said  down  to  this  day,  and  that  not  by 
ministers  of  the  Church  oi"  England  alone,  but  by  others  of 
whom  better  things  might  be  expected,f  that  the  Puritans 
refused  to  remain  in  their  ministry  merely  because  of  the 
imposition  of"  square  caps,  copes,  and  surplices  ;"  or  even, 
which  are  of  higher  moment,  because  of  the  "cross  in 
baptism,"  and  kneeling  at  the  communion  ;  these  things 
being  considered  simply  in  themselves.  What  they  con- 
demned and  resisted  was  the  principle,  that  man  has 
authority  to  alter  the  economy  of  God's  house.  "  Consid- 
ering, therefore,"  said  the  ministers  of  London,  in  1565, 
in  a  defence  they  published  of  their  own  conduct,  "  con- 

*  Strype's  Parker,  ii.  381—5. 

f  See  Orme's  Life  of  Owen,  commented  on  by  Dr.  McCrie  in 
his  Miscellaneous  Works,  pp.  465,  466. 
52 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  49 

sidering,  therefore,  that  at  this  time,  by  admitting  the  out- 
ivard  apparel,  and  ministering  garments  of  the  Pope's 
Church,  not  only  tlic  Christian  liberty  should  be  manifestly 
nfringed,  but  the  whole  religion  of  Christ  would  be  brought 
10  be  esteemed  no  other  thing  than  the  pleasure  of  princes, 
they  iihe  London  ministers)  thought  it  their  duty,  bemg 
ministers  of  God's  word  and  sacraments,  utterly  to  refuse" 
to  submit  to  the  required  impositions.  But  if  the  prelates 
were  determined  to  proceed  in  their  infatuated  career,  then 
these  enlightened  servants  of  God  professed  their  willing- 
ness "  to^ubmit  themselves  to  any  punishment  the  laws 
did  appoint,  that  so  they  might  teach  by  their  example 
true  obedience  both  to  God  and  man,  and  yet  to  keep 
the  Christian  liberty  sound,  and  show  the  Christian  reli- 
gion to  be  such,  that  no  prince  or  potentate  might  alter  the 


same."  * 


When  Sampson  and  Humphreys  were  required  to  sub- 
scribe and  submit  to  the  prescribed  impositions,  they  re- 
fused  upon  the  following,  among  other  accounts: — "If, 
they  said,  "  we  should  grant  to  wear  priests'  apparel,  then 
it  might  and  would  be  required  at  our  hands  to  have 
;  shaven  crowns,  and  to  receive  more  Papistical  abuses. 
Therefore  it  is  best,  at  the^  first,  not  to  wear  priests'  appa- 
rel."t  It  was  the  principle  involved  in  these  impositions 
they  opposed.  And  well  are  we  assured,  that  had  it  not 
been  for  the  resistance  to  the  first  attempts  to  enslave  the 
conscience,  which  were  made  by  these  glorious  confessors 
and  martyrs,  other  and  still  more  hateful  abuses  of  Popery 
would  have  been  perpetuated  in  the  Anglican  Church. 
Only  grant  the  principle,  that  man  has  the  right  to  make 
such  impositions,  and  where  is  the  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple to  find  its  limit  ? 

And  as  to  the  stale  objection,  that  these  men  relinquished 
their  ministry  for  frivolous  rites  and  habits,  it  is  enough  to 
reply,  that  the  objection  is  not  founded  upon  truth. 

»  As  touching  that  point,"  (the  habits,)  says  Cartwright, 
"  whether  the  minister  should  wear  it,  although  it  be 
inconvenient ;  the  truth  is,  that  I  dare  not  be  author  to 
any  to  forsake  his  pastoral  charge  for  the  inconvenience 
thereof,  considering  that  this  charge  (the  ministry)  being 
an  absolute  commandment  of  the  Lord,  ought  not  to  be 
laid  aside  for  a  simple  inconvenience  or  uncomehness  of 

•  Avud  Strype's  An.  ii.  166,  167.       f  Strype's  Parker,  i.  340. 
^  e2  5  53 


60  THE    ANGLICAN    REFGKMATION. 

a  thing  which,  in  its  own  nature,  is  indifferent.  .  .  .  Wher 
it  is  laid  in  the  scales  with  the  preaching  of  the  word  of 
God,  which  is  so  necessary  to  him  who  is  called  thereunto, 
that  a  woe  hangeth  on  his  head  if  he  do  not  preach  it ;  it 
is  of  less  importance  than  for  the  refusal  of  it  we  should  let 
go  so  necessary  a  duty."  * 

We  might  challenge  their  accusers,  whether  Brownist  or 
Prelatist,  to  show  us  sentiments  more  enlightened  or  more 
consistently  maintained,  since  the  world  began. 

We  have  said  so  much  upon  this  point,  because  we  do 
not  mean  at  present  to  enter  upon  a  formal  defence  of  the 
Puritans,  although  we  may,  perchance,  do  so  elsewhere, 
and  at  greater  length,  hereafter,  if  God  spare  us.  We 
have  done  this  also  to  prevent  our  readers  from  being 
carried  away  by  the  oft-repeated  libels  of  pert  preten- 
ders to  liberality,  or  of  servile  conformists  to  hierarchical 
impositions,  against  the  best  men  that  England  has  ever 
produced. 

The  universities  did  little  or  nothing  to  provide  minis- 
ters for  the  necessities  of  the  times.  The  condition  of 
Oxford  at  the  accession  of  Elizabeth  was  deplorable  in  the 
extreme.t  In  1563,  Sampson,  Humphreys,  and  Kings- 
mill,  three  Puritans,  were  the  only  ministers  who  could 
preach,  resident  in  Oxford  ;|  and  as  if  to  deliver  over  that 
university  to  the  unrestrained  sway  of  Popery,  the  two 
former  were  ejected,  while  Papists  swarmed  in  all  the 
colleges.  In  one  college,  (Exeter,)  in  1578,  out  of  eighty 
resident  members,  there  were  only  four  professed  Protes- 
tants.§  Whenever  a  Puritan  was  discovered,  he  was 
instantly  expelled;  but  never,  — so  far  as  we  could  dis- 
cover, and  we  paid  attention  to  the  point,  never,  for  mere 
Popery,  was  one  Papist  ejected,  from  either  cure  or  college, 
throughout  the  whole  reign  of  Elizabeth.  Oxford  con- 
tinued thus  the  stronghold  of  Popery ;  and  instead  of  pro- 
viding ministers  for  the  Church  of  England,  it  provided 
members  for  Popish  colleges  "  beyond  the  seas."||  It  is 
instructive,  not  less  to  the  statesman  and  the  philosopher, 
than  to  the  divine,  to  find  the  self-propagating  power  of 
error,  and  the  tendency  to  conserve  corruption,  which  has 

*  Rest  of  Second  Replie  to  Whitgift,  ed.  1577,  p.  262. 
_^  t  See  Jewell's  Letters  to  Bullinger  and.  Peter  Martyr  on  the 
btate  of  Oxford;  Burnet's  Records,  bk.  vi.  48,  56. 

+  Slrype's  Parker,  i.  313.  §  Strype's  An.  ii.  196,  197. 

jjlbid.  390,  391. 
54 


THE    ANGLfCAN    REFORMATION,  51 

been  manifested  in  that  celebrated  seat  of  learning.  When- 
ever Popery  is  assailed,  it  uniformly  finds  a  safe  retreat  in 
Oxford. 

In  the  reign  of  Edward,  Cambridge  had  received  a  larger 
diffusion  of  the  gospel  than  the  rival  university.  Almost 
all  the  first  prelates  of  Elizabeth  had  been  educated  on  the 
banks  of  the  Cam,  and  all  the  principal  preachers  of  the 
same  period  had  been  trained  in  the  same  place.  Cam- 
bridge, in  fact,  along  with  London,  was  the  head  quarters 
of  Puritanism,  not  less  among  the  undergraduates,  than 
the  heads  and  members.  From  a  faculty  which  had  been 
granted  by  the  Pope  to  that  university,  to  license  twelve 
preachers  annually,  who  might  officiate  in  any  part  of  the 
kingdom,  without  having  their  licenses  countersigned  by 
the  prelates,  Cambridge  seemed  destined  to  be  the  salva- 
tion of  England.  The  Protestant  prelates,  however,  could 
not  tolerate  a  license  to  preach,  which  even  their  Popish 
predecessors  had  patronized,  and  never  ceased  until  they 
had  deprived  Cambridge  of  its  privilege.  Not  satisfied 
with  this  prevention  of  preaching,  Parker  and  his  successor 
determined  to  root  out  Puritanism  from  its  stronghold ; 
and  as  they  had  silenced  its  preachers  in  London,  so  they 
silenced  its  professors  at  Cambridge.  Cartwright,  John- 
son, Bering,  Brown,  Wilcox,  and  their  fellows,  were 
expelled,  some  of  them  imprisoned,  and  some  of  them 
driven  into  banishment.  The  salt  being  thus  removed, 
the  body  sunk  into  partial  corruption.  Of  Cambridge, 
however,  it  is  right  that  it  should  be  recorded,  that  what- 
ever of  Protestantism  F^ngland  possesses,  it  owes  to  that 
university.  How  singular  it  is,  that  after  the  lapse  of  three 
centuries,  the  two  English  universities  should,  at  this  day, 
retain  the  distinguishing  features  which  characterized  them 
at  the  Reformation. 

In  order  to  supply  as  much  as  they  possibly  could  some 
instructors-  for  their  parishes,  the  Anglican  prelates  estab- 
lished in  their  diocese  what  was  called  "  prophesyings," 
or  "  exercises,"  that  is,  monthly  or  weekly  meetings  of 
the  clergy  for  mutual  instruction  in  theology  and  pulpit 
ministrations  ;  and  the  plan  was  found  to  work  so  admi- 
rably, that,  as  Grindal  told  the  queen  in  1576,  when  she 
commanded  him  to  suppress  the  prophesyings,  and  di- 
minish the  number  of  preachers,  "  where  afore  were  not 
three  able  preachers,  now  are  thirty  meet  to  preach  at 
Paul's   Cross,  and  forty  or  fifly  besides  able  to  instruct 

55 


62  THE    ANGLICAN    KEFOEMATIOW. 


their  own  cures."  *  The  prophesyings,  however,  we 
suppressed,  and  the  people  left  to  perish  for  lack  of  know- 
ledge. On  a  survey  ot  the  condition  of  England  at  the 
time,  nothing  can  more  strongly  convince  a  pious  mind  of 
the  superintendence  of  a  graciolis  Providence,  than  that 
the  kingdom  did  not  sink  into  heathenism,  or  at  least  re- 
main altogether  Popish. 

The  moral  character  of  the  Anglican  priesthood  was  of 
a  piece  with  their  ignorance  and  Popish  tendencies.  This 
subject  is  so  disgusting,  and  the  disclosures  we  could  make 
so  shocking,  that  we  hesitate  whether  it  were  not  better  to 
pass  by  the  subject  in  total  silence.  We  may  give  an  ; 
instance  or  two,  however,  as  a  specimen  of  what  was  the 
almost  universal  condition  of  this  clergy,  and  our  speci-  | 
mens  are  by  no  means  the  worst  we  could  adduce.  San- 
dys of  Worcester,  in  his  first  visitation  in  1560,  found  in 
the  city  of  Worcester,  five  or  six  priests,  "  who  kept  five 
or  six  whores  a-piece."f  And  were  they  suspended! 
Our  author  gives  not  one  single  hint  that  they  were.  But 
had  they  preached  the  gospel  at  uncanonical  hours,  or 
saved  sinners  in  uncanonical  garments,  they  would  not 
only  have  been  deposed,  but  fined,  imprisoned,  and  perhaps 
banished  or  even  put  to  death.  The  laws  of  God  might 
be  violated  v/ith  impunity,  but  woe  unto  him  who  broke 
the  laws  of  Elizabeth  and  Parker.  Again,  in  1559,  at  a 
commission  appointed  to  visit  the  province  of  York,  com- 
prising the  whole  of  the  north  and  east  of  England,  with 
the  diocese  of  Chester,  which  includes  Lancashire,  "the 
presentments,"  that  is,  the  informations  lodged  against  the 
incumbents,  "  were  most  fi*equent,  almost  in  every  parish, 
about  fornication,  and  keeping  other  women  besides  their 
wives,  and  for  having  bastard  children. "J:  "As  to  Bangor, 
that  diocese  was  much  out  of  order,  there  being  no  preach- 
ing used,  and  pensionary  concubinacy  openly  continued, 
which  was  an  allowance  of  concubinacy  to  the  clergy  by 
paying  a  pension  (to  the  bishop  or  his  court,)  notwithstand- 
ing the  liberty  of  marriage  granted."  And  Parker  him- 
self was  openly  charged  with  having  "such  a  commis- 
sioner there  as  openly  kept  thi-ee  concubines. "§  This,  let 
it  be  noticed,  was  not  a  libel  by  "  Martin  Marprelate,"  but 

*  Strype's  Grin3al,  Rec.  B.  ii.  No.  9,  p.  568.  We  recomraenC. 
to  our  readers  to  peruse  the  whole  of  that  noble  letter,  the  nobles* 
that  was  ever  addressed  to  Elizabeths 

f  Strype's  Parker,  i.  156.  ^  Strype*s  An.  i.  246. 

§  Strype's  Parker,  i.  404. 
56 


THE  ANGLICAN  REFOKMATION.  53 

an  official  report  from  a  royal  commission  presented  to 
the  privy  council.  While  Puritans  crowded  every  pestifer- 
ous jail  'in  the  kingdom  for  merely  preaching  the  truth 
as  it  IS  in  Jesus,  these  infamous  priests  filled  every  parish 
in  England.  Let  any  man  assert  that  we  have  given  the 
only,  or  the  most  scandalous  instances  we  could  rake  up 
from  the  polluted  sewer  of  the  early  Anglican  Church  his- 
tory, and  we  shall  give  him  references  to  fifty  times  as 
many  more ;  for  we  decline  polluting  our  pages  with  such 
abandoned  profligacy. 

One  of  the  most  fruitful  sources  of  these  enormous  evils 
under  which  the  Church  of  England  at  this  time  groaned, 
was  that  prolific  mother  of  all  corruption,  'patronage^ 
which  has  never  existed  in  a  Church  without  corrupting 
it.  In  1584,  "  a  person  of  eminency  in  the  Church"  gives 
a  fearful  picture  of  the  evils  which  "  the  devil  and 
corrupt  patrons"  had  occasioned  to  the  Anglican  estab- 
lishment. "  For  patrons  now-a-days,"  he  says,  "  search 
not  the  universities  for  most  fit  pastors,  but  they  post 
up  and  down  the  country  for  a  most  gainful  chapman ; 
he  that  hath  the  biggest  purse  to  pay  largely,  not  he 
that  hath  the  best  gifts  to  preach  learnedly  is  pre- 
sented." * 

The  bishops  were  just  as  corrupt  in  the  disposal  of  the 
benefices  in  their  gift  as  the  lay  patrons.  Curtes  of  Chi- 
chester, for  example,  was  charged  by  several  gentlemen 
and  justices  of  [)eace  of  his  diopese,  among  other  malver- 
sations of  office,  with  keeping  benefices  in  his  gift  long 
vacant,  that  he  might  himself  pocket  the  fruits,  and  selling 
his  advowsons  to  the  highest  bidder. f  After  a  visitation 
of  his  province,  Parker  writes  Lady  Bacon,  that  "  to  sell 
and  to  buy  benefices,  to  fleece  parsonages  and  vicarages, 
was  come  to  that  pass,  that  omnia  sunt  venalia  /"  that 
all  ranks  were  guilty  of  tho  practice,  "  so  far,  that  some 
one  knight  had  four  or  five,  and  others,  seven  or  eight 
benefices  clouted  together,"  and  retained  in  their  own 
hands,  the  parishes  all  the  while  being  vacant  ;  while 
others  again  set  boys  and  servants  "  to  bear  the  names  of 
such  livings,"  and  others  again  bargained  them  away  at  a 
fixed  sum  per  year.  "  And,"  he  adds,  "  this  kind  of  doing 
was  common  in  all  the  country.":}: 

*  Strype's  An.  ii.  146.     Ibid.  Whitgift,  i.  368.  f  Ibid.  117. 

t  Sirype's  Parker,  i.  495 — 8.     By  the  22d  apostolical  canon,  the 
2d  council  of  Chalcedon,  and  the  22d  Trullan  canon,  Simonists, 
5*  57 


54  THE    ANGLICAN    KEFORMATION. 

When  the  Simonists  came  for  orders  or  institution,  they 
sometimes  were  rejected  by  the  more  conscientious  pre- 
lates, on  account,  not  indeed  of  their  Simony,  which,  so 
far  as  we  have  noticed,  never  happened,  but  on  account  of 
their  gross  ignorance  and  scandalous  lives.  But  the  pat- 
rons, and  these  dutiful  sons  of  the  Church,  anticipating  by- 
three  centuries,  the  practices  with  which  we  are,  alas,  but 
too  familiar  in  our  own  day,  were  not  thus  to  be  defrauded 
of  their  "  vested  rights"  and  "  patrimonial  interests." 
They  commenced  suits  in  the  civil  courts,  and  harassed 
the  bishops  with  the  terrors  of  a  quare  impedit,  and  of  a 
praemunire.  They  did  not  always,  however,  put  them- 
selves to  that  trouble.  Some  of  the  presentees  at  once 
took  possession  of  their  benefices  without  waiting  for  orders, 
(as  we  shall  by  and  by  show,)  and  set  themselves  to  read 
prayers,  and  administer  quasi  sacraments,  or  what  was 
much  more  congenial  to  their  tastes,  to  cultivate  their 
glebes ;  varying  the  monotony  of  attending  "  farmers' 
dinners"  by  occasional  other  indulgences  much  less 
"  moderate." 

In  consequence  of  this  state  of  matters,  pluralities  and 
non-residence  became  universal.  Nor  could  it  well  be 
otherwise  when  the  prelates  set  such  examples  as  that  we 
are  about  to  adduce  before  men  by  no  means  disinclined 
to  follow  them.  We  could  show  several  examples  of 
pluralism  such  as  never,  we  are  persuaded,  was  witnessed 
in  any  other  Church.  The  case  of  the  following  Jacobus 
de  Voragine,  however,  may  stand  for  all.  From  the 
frequency  and  the  urgency  of  the  complaints  that  came 
up  to  the  privy  council  regarding  the  state  of  the  diocese 
of  St.  Asaph,  a  commission  was  appointed  in  1587  to  visit 
it.  The  visitors,  on  their  return,  laid  the  following  report 
before  the  high  commission  court,  viz.  that  "  most  of  the 
great  livings  within  the  diocese,  some  with  cure  of  souls 
and  some  without  cure,  are  either  holden  by  the  bishop 
(Hughes)  himself  in  conimendam^''  or  by  non-residents, 
the  most  of  whom  were  laymen,  civilians,  or  lawyers  in 
the  archbishop's  court,  through  which  dispensations  to 
hold  commendams  were  obtained.  The  prelate  kept  to  his 
own  share  sixteen  of  the  richest  benefices.     Fourteen  of 

if  prelates,  or  priests,  or  deacons,  were  to  be  deposed  and  excom- 
municated. Pray,  what  becomes  of  the  "  apostolical  succession" 
in  the  Church  of  England,  if  these  canons  are  held  valid?  And 
if  the  canons  are  rejected,  pray,  on  what  other  foundation  does 
the  Church  of  England  stand  1 
5d 


THE  ANGLICAN  REFORMATION.  65 

the  same  class  were  held  by  the  civil  lawyers,  of  course, 
as  fees  for  granting  him  dispensations  to  hold  the  rest. 
There  was  not  a  single  preacher  within,  the  diocese,  the 
"  lord  bishop  only  excepted,"  but  three.  One  of  the  resi- 
dent pluralists  holding  three  benefices,  two  of  them  among 
the  richest  in  the  diocese,  kept  neither  "  house  nor  hospi- 
tality," but  lived  in  an  ale  house.  The  prelate  also  sold 
(some  on  behoof  of  his  wife,  some  on  that  of  his  children, 
and  some  on  his  own)  most,  if  not  all,  the  livings  in  his 
gift,  besides  those  reserved  in  his  own  hands.  He  would 
grant  the  tithes  of  any  living  to  any  person  who  would 
pay  for  them,  reserving  for  the  support  of  an  incumbent 
what  would  not  maintain  a  mechanic  :  in  consequence  of 
which  the  parishes  remained  vacant.  In  his  visitations  he 
would  compel  the  clergy,  besides  the  customary  "  pro- 
curations," as  they  are  called,  (that  is,  an  assessment 
upon  the  clergy  to  pay  the  ordinary  expenses  of  a  prelate 
during  a  visitation  through  his  diocese,)  to  pay  also  for  all 
his  train.* 

Our  readers  will  not  be  surprised  to  hear  that  this 
wholesale  dealer  in  tithes  and  benefices  was  amassing  a 
handsome  fortune  and  purchasing  large  estates,  besides 
dealing  in  mortgages  and  other  profitable  speculations. 
But  they  will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  no  comrnendam 
could  be  held  without  a  dispensation  from  the  archbishop's 
court,  and  that  while  hundreds  of  parishes  throughout 
England  were  vacant  for  want  of  ministers  to  supply  them, 
and  while  hundreds  more  were  so  poor  that  they  could  not 
support  a  minister,"!"  Parker  was  accustomed  to  grant  dis- 
pensations to  prelates  to  hold  commendams,  for  the  purpose 

*  Strype's  An.  iii.  435,  436,  and  iv.  Ap.  No.  32. 

•j-  There  are  in  En^Jland  4543  livings,  if  livings  they  can  be 
called,  under  £10.  See  an  extract  from  a  document  from  ihe  state 
paper  office  on  the  value  of  all  the  benefices  in  En2;land  in  C'lllier 
ix,  Rec  No.  99.  "  The  Church  of  England  probably  stands  alone," 
says  Bishop  Short,  "in  latter  times  as  exhibiting  instances  of 
pccle5*iastical  offices  unprovided  with  any  temporal  support." 
Sketch,  «fec.  p.  188.  "The  extreme  poverty  which  has  been 
entailed  on  many  of  our  livings,"  he  says  again,  "is  one  of  the 
greatest  evils  which  afflicts  our  Church  property,"  p.  509.  And 
ht  says  elsewhere,  that  if  it  were  not  for  the  number  of  persons 
of  independent  fortune  who  take  orders  in  the  Church  of  England, 
(allured  of  course  by  the  highest  prizes,)  many  of  the  cures  must 
remain  vacant.  The  manner  in  which  the  Church  of  England, 
and  our  own  Church  also,  were  pillaged  at  the  Reformation  by 
our  benevolent  friends  the  patrons,  is  an  inviting  subject  for  a 
dissertation,  but  we  must  not  enter  upon  it  here. 

50 


B6  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

of  being  able  to  maintain  what  he  so  much  loved  and  com- 
mended to  others,  viz.,  "  the  port  of  a  bishop  ;"*  and  they 
may  also  be  surprised,  that  is  to  say,  if  they  are  not  so  well 
acquainted  with  the  primate  as  we  happen  to  be,  when  we 
tell  them  that  Parker  was  paid  a  sort  of  per  centage  upon 
all  these  dispensations  ;  not  that  we  insinuate  that  this  had 
any  share  in  inducing  him  to  grant  them,  although  his  own 
maintenance  of  the  "  port  of  bishop"  entailed  upon  him  no 
trifling  expense. f 

Our  readers  will  now  be  prepared  to  receive  the  follow- 
ing account  of  the  state  of  the  Church  and  kingdom  of 
England,  drawn  up  by  the  industrious  Strypej:  from  the 
papers  of  Cecil : — 

"  The  state  of  the  Church  and  religion  at  this  time  (1572) 

was  but  low  and  sadly  neglected The  churchmen 

heaped  up  many  benefices  upon  themselves  and  resided 
upon  none,  neglecting  their  cures.  Many  of  them  alien- 
ated their  lands ;  made  unreasonable  leases  and  wastes  of 
their  woods ;  granted  reversions  and  advowsons  to  their 
wives  and  children,  or  to  others  for  their  use.  Churches 
ran   greatly   into   dilapidation   and    decay,  and   were   kept 

nasty  and   filthy,  and   indecent  for   God's  worship 

Among  the  laity  there  was  little  devotion  ;  the  Lord's  day 
greatly  profaned  and  little  observed  ;  the  common  prayers 
n(4  frequented  ;  some  lived  without  any  service  of  God  at 
all;  many  were  mere  heathens  and  atheists;  the  queen's 
own  court  an  harbour  for  epicures  and  atheists,  and  a  kind 
of  lawless  place  because  it  stood  in  no  parish ;  —  which 
things  made  good  men  fear  some  bad  judgments  impend- 
ing over  the  nation." 

And  yet  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  can  find  no 
terms  sufficiently  sirong  in  which  to  j^^aise  the  reformation 
n  their  own  Church,  or  dispraise  that  in  the  other  Protes- 
tant churches. 


*  For  this  purpose,  he  granted  lo  Cheney  a  dispensation  to  hold 
Bristol  in  commendam  with  Gloucester.  And  for  precisely  the 
same  purpose,  he  granted  Blethyn  of  LandafF  a  dispensation  to 
hold  the  archdeaconry  of  Brecon,  the  rectory  of  Roget,  a  prebend 
in  Landaff,  the  rectory  of  Sunningwell,  and  in  addition,  "to  hold 
alia  qusecunque,  quotcunque,  qualiacunque,  not  exceeding  £100  per 
ann."     Strype's  Parker,  ii.  421,  422. 

f  As  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  Parker  maintained 
the  "  port  of  a  bishop,"  the  reader  may  consult  Strype's  Parker,  i. 
378—380,  253,  254 ;  ii.  278,  296,  297,  &c. 

\  Life  of  Parker,  ii.  204,  205. 
60 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFOKMATION.  57 

It  may  not  be  improper,  although  we  have  scrupulously 
confined  ourselves  to  Church  of  England  authorities,  to  give 
the  testimony  of  a  contemporary  Puritan  as  to  the  condi- 
tion of  that  Church  about  1570  : — 

"  I  could  rehearse  by  name,"  says  our  author,  "  a 
bishop's  boy,  ruffianly  both  in  behaviour  and  apparel,  at 
every  word  swearing  and  staring,  having  ecclesiastical 
promotions — a  worthy  prebend  (prebendary  ?)  no  doubt. 
I  could  name  whoremongers  being  taken,  and  also  con- 
fessing  their  lechery,  and  yet  both  enjoying  their  livings 
and  also  having  their  mouths  open,  and  not  stopped  nor 
forbidden  to  preach.  I  know  also  some  that  have  said 
mass  diverse  years  since  it  was  prohibited,  and  upon  their 
examination  confessed  the  same,  yet  are  in  quiet  possession 
of  their  ecclesiastical  promotions.  I  know  double  beneficed 
men  that  do  nothing  but  eat,  drink,  sleep,  play  at  dice 
tables,  bowls,  and  read  service  in  the  Church, — but  these 
infect  not  their  flocks  with  false  doctrine,  for  they  teach 
nothing  at  all."* 

Where  is  the  man  who  ponders  over  these  statements 
that  will  not  sympathize  with  the  bishop  of  Sodor  and 
IVIan,  in  the  reflection  with  which  he  closes  his  history  of 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth?  —  "The  feeling  which  the  more 
attentive  study  of  these  times  is  calculated  to  inspire,"  says 
Dr.  Short,"!"  "  is  the  conviction  of  the  superintendence  of 

*  Parte  of  a  Register,  p.  8.  See  also  passim,  the  first  of  the 
Mar  Prelate  Tracts,  just  reprinted  by  Mr.  Jc>hn  Petheram,  hook- 
seller,  71  Chancery  Lane,  London.  The  Mar  Prelate  Tracts 
having  been  written  in  a  satirical  style,  were  disclaimed  by  the 
stern  and  severe  Puritans  of  the  times,  but  so  far  as  facts  are  con- 
cerned, we  hold  them  perfectly  trustworthy.  We  have  read  through 
Martin's  Epistle,  just  published,  and  will  at  any  time,  at  five  min- 
utes' warning,  undertake  to  establish  by  positive  or  presumptive 
evidence  the  substantial,  and  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  the 
verbal,  truth  of  any  important  fact  it  contains.  Mr.  Petheram 
intends,  should  he  receive  sufficient  encouragement,  to  reprint  by 
subscription,  in  a  neat  cheap  form,  several  of  the  old  Puritan 
tracts,  such  as  The  Troubles  at  Frankfort,  Admonition  to  P.irlia- 
ment.  Parte  of  Register,  and  others  exxeedingly  valuable,  but  so 
exceedingly  rare,  tliat  not  one  in  a  hundred  of  our  readers  can 
ever  have  seen  them.  Mr.  Petheram  illustrates  these  tracts  by 
judicious  antiquarian  notes,  that  add  greatly  to  their  value.  We 
recommend  our  readers  in  the  strongest  terms  to  possess. them- 
selves of  these  curious  and  valuable  productions,  and  trust  Mr. 
Petheram  may  receive  such  encouragement  in  his  spirited  enter- 
prise as  may  induce  him  to  reprint  even  larger  works  of  the  old 
Puritan  divines. 

t  Sketch,  &c.,  p.  318. 

F  61 


58  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

Providence  over  the  Church  of  Christ."  Assuredly  but 
for  the  vvatchfiil  providence  of  the  God  of  all  grace,  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  England  could  never  have  survived  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth. 

There  is  just  one  subject  more  to  which  we  must  allude 
before  we  bring  the  lengthened  sketch  of  the  Anglican 
Reformation  to  a  close ;  and  we  do  so  in  order  to  show  our 
readers  that  if"  apostolical  succession,"  or  an  uninterrupted 
succession  of  ministers  canonically  baptized,  and  prelatically 
ordained  and  consecrated,  be  essential  to  the  being  of  a 
Church,  then  the  Church  of  England  not  only  cannof  prove 
that  she  has  this  essential  qualification,  but  we  can  prove 
that  she  has  lost  it,  at  least  to  an  extent  that  invalidates  all 
her  pretensions  to  its  possession. 

We  have  some  time  ago  shown,  that,  on  canonical  prin- 
ciples, baptism  is  valid  only  when  it  is  administered  by  a 
minister  canonically,  that  is,  as  it  is  commonly  understood, 
prelatically  ordained;    and   that   without   such   baptism    a 
man's  orders,  however  canonically  conferred,  are  null  and 
void,   inasmuch    as    he    wanted    a    qualification    which    is 
essential  as  a  substratum  for  orders  subsequently  received. 
Ministers  of  the  Church  of  England,  if  they  would  prove 
that  they  possess  an  apostolical  succession,  must  first  prove 
that  all  through  whom  baptism  and  orders  have  descended 
to  them  have    themselves    been    canonically  baptized  and 
ordained.     But  how  can  this  be  proved  in  the  presence  of 
such   facts  as  the  following?     Midwives,  about  the  period 
of  the  Reformation,  were,  it  would  appear,  frequently  guilty 
of  changing   infants    at    birth,   strangling    and    beheading 
them,  and    baptizing  them   in  what  were  called  cases  of 
necessity,  with  perfumed  and  artificial  water,  and  "  odd  and 
profane  words"  and  cen^monies.     On  these  accounts  it  was 
deemed  necessary  not  only  to  bind  them  over  to  keep  the 
peace  towards   these   "innocents,"   but    to   grant    them   a 
species  of  orders,  by  which  they  might  be  admitted  among 
the  subaltern   grades    of   the  hierarchy.     Parker,  for  ex- 
ample, in  1587,  grants  to  Eleanor  Pead,  a  license  to  ad- 
minister baptism,  (having  first  exacted  of  her  an  oath  of 
canonical  obedience)  of  the  following  tenor, — "  Also,  that 
in   the  ministration   of   the  sacrament  of  baptism,  I    will 
use  apt,  and    the    accustomed   words   of  the    same  sacra- 
ment, that  is  to  say,  these  words  followinij,  or  the  like  in 
effect,  '  I  christen  thee  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost,'  and  none  other  profane  words."  * 

*  Strype's  An.  i.  ii.  242 — 3. 
62 


THE    ANGLICAN    REF0R3IATI0N.  59 

Now,  without  being  so  hypercritical  as  to  maintain  that 
Parker,  in  calling  the  words  "  I  christen  thee,"  &c.  "  pro- 
fane words,"  as  in  the  above  sentence  he  necessarily  does, 
seems  himself  to  acknowledge  the  invalidity  of  such  pre- 
;ended  sacrament ;  and  without  maintaining  that  the  omis- 
sion of  the  scriptural  term  "  I  baptize,"  and  the  substitution 
)f  the  unscriptural  and  heretical  term  "I  christen,"  invali- 
iates  the  whole  act,  (even  had  it  been  performed  by  Parker 
limself,)  but  granting  that  these  irregularities  derogate 
lothing  from  the  validity  of  the  ordinance,  as  performed 
Dy  the  said  Eleanor,  we  yet  beg  leave  to  demand  of  every 
)retender  to  the  apostolical  succession  in  the  Anglican 
Jhurch,  to  prove  to  our  satisfaction  that  some  of  his  ghostly 
athers  were  not  "  christened"  by  Eleanor  Pead,  or  some 
)f  her  "  sage"  sisterhood  ;  and  if  they  were,  then  to  show 
IS  any  authority  whatever  that  such  "  sage  femme"  has  to 
idminister  baptism  any  more  than  the  Lord's  Supper ; 
md  finally,  if  he  contends  that  Eleanor  Pead  did,  or  could 
)0ssess  such  authority,  then  we  ask  on  what  ground  could 
he  be  inhibited  from  performing  the  other  acts  of  the  min- 
stry,  or  why  deacons,  priests,  and  prelates  are  at  all  ne- 
:essary,  seeing  an  apostolical  succession  of  midwives  is 
just  as  sufficient  as  that  of  prelates  or  popes !  We  trust 
hese  remarks  may  not  be  considered  venj  unreasonable. 

But  we  possess  ample  evidence  that  midwives  were  not 
he  only  uncanonical  administrators  of  sacraments  during 
he  Anglican  Reformation.  We  have  already  shown  that 
be  bishops  were  persecuted,  both  by  patrons  and  presen- 
ces, when  ordination  and  institution  were  refused  to  un- 
ualified  candidates.*  But  we  have  now  to  show  that 
[lany  of  those  whose  only  object  in  getting  a  "  living," 
vBiS  what  the  term  so  expressively  signifies,  on  meeting 
nth  patrons,  whose  only  desire  was  to  make  the  most  of 
leir  "  patrimonial  rights,  and  vested  interests,"  without 
•oubling  prelate  or  primate  for  orders,  at  once,  not  only 
)ok  possession  of  the  temporalities,  but  set  themselves 
)  perform  all  clerical  acts,  as  ministers  of  the  parishes, 
n    1567,   in   a  visitation   of  the   cathedral    of  Norwich, 

was  discovered  that  one  of  the  archdeacons  (a  part 
f  whose  functions  it  is  to  institute,  or  as  we  call  it,  to 
iduct,  into  benefices)  and  a  prebendary  were  not  in  orders 
t  all.f     In  1568,  the  bishop  of  Gloucester  wrote  Parker 


*  See  for  example  Strype's  Parker,  ii.  84 — 87. 
+  Strype's  Parker,  i.  492. 

.     63 


60  THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION. 

that  he  had  discovered  in  his  diocese  two  men  who  had 
"  administered  the  communion,  christened  infants,  and 
married  people,  and  done  other  spiritual  offices  in  the 
Church,  and  yet  never  took  holy  orders.  One  of  them  had 
counterfeited  that  bishop's  seal,  and  the  other  was  per- 
jured."* In  1574,  there  was  "one^Lowth,  of  Carlisle 
side,  who,  though  he  had  for  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  exer- 
cised the  function,  yet  he  proved  to  be  ordered  neither 
priest  nor  minister."t  He  was  discovered  in  consequence 
of  some  irregularity  in  his  conformity,  which  led  to  his 
examination,  and  in  consequence  of  which  he  was  dis- 
covered to  be  a  mere  layman.  Had  he  conformed,  like  so 
many  more  who  were  in  similar  circumstances,  he  might 
perhaps,  layman  though  he  was,  have  risen  to  the  bench. 
In  1582,  the  bishop  of  St.  David's  wrote  to  Walsingham 
that  he  found  in  his  diocese  "  divers  that  pretended  to  be 
ministers,  and  had  counterfeited  divers  bishops'  seals,  as 
Gloucester,  Hereford,  Landaff  and  his  predecessors,  being 
not  called  at  all  to  the  ministry."  There  must  have  been 
at  least  four  of  them,  and  they  had  been  in  their  cures  "  by 
the  space  of  eight,  ten,  twelve,  and  some  fourteen  years."|; 
"  But  among  the  most  scandalous  churchmen  in  these  days 
(1571,)  the  greatest  surely,"  says  Strype,§  who,  however, 
knew  far  too  much  to  be  very  confident  in  his  assertion, — 

"  the  greatest  surely  was  one  Blackall He  had  four 

wives  alive.  ...  He  had  intruded  himself  into  the  ministry 
for  the  space  of  twelve  years,  and  yet  was  never  lawfully 
called  nor  made  minister  by. any  bishop.  ...  He  was  a 
chopper  and  changer  of  benefices,"  (that  is,  he  was  success- 
ful in  getting  a  variety  of  presentations  to  benefices  in 
various  parts  of  the  country,  into  which  he  intruded  him- 
self, without  asking  the  leave  or  concurrence  of  any  prelate 
— a  very  frequent  occurrence  at  the  time,)  "  little  caring 
by  what  ways  or  mean>s  so  (as)  he  might  get  money  from 
any  man.  Re  would  run  from  country  to  country,  and 
from  town  to  town,  leading  about  with  him  naughty 
women,  as  in  Gloucestershire  he  led  a  naughty  strumpet 
about  the  country,  (nick)  named  Gree?i  Apron.  He 
altered  his  name  wherever  he  went,  going  by  these  several 
surnames,  Blackall,  Barthall,  Dorel,  Barkly,  Baker!  !" 
Was  there  ever  a  church  upon  the  earth  in  which  such 

*  Strype's  Parker,  i.  534. 
f  Ibid.  ii.  400.     Life  of  Grindal,  275—6. 
t  Strype's  Life  of  Grindal,  401.  §  Annals,  iii.  144—5. 

64 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  61 

monster  as  this  could  exist,  in  which  such  atrocious  irregu- 
larities, and  not  only  irregularities,  but  criminalities,  could 
be  openly  perpetrated  for  the  space  of  twelve  years,  without 
censure  or  detection,  but  the  Church  of  England  alone  ? 
And  are  we  now,  in  blind  uninquiring  submission  to  "  bulls" 
from  Oxford,  or  London  or  Lambeth,  in  spite  of  such  infa- 
mous facts  open  to  the  whole  world, — are  we,  renouncing 
the  characteristic  attributes  of  man,  and  resigning  the  direc- 
tion of  our  judgments,  and  the  interests  of  our  souls  into  the 
hands  of  the  successors,  not  of  the  apostles,  but  of  such  mis- 
creants as  Blackall,  to  receive,  as  the  only  commissioned 
messengers  of  Heaven  to  our  land,  the  ministers  of  the 
Church  of  England  1  So  common  in  fact  was  the  practice 
of  taking  possession  of  benefices  without  orders,  and  when 
the  right  of' possession  was  at  any  time  questioned,  of  forging 
letters  of  orders,  that  in  1575,  that  is,  seventeen  years  after 
the  Anglican  Church  was  settled  under  Elizabeth,  the  matter 
was  brought  before  convocation,  and  it  was  enacted,  that 
"diligent  inquisition  should  be  made  for  such  as  forged  let- 
ters of  orders,"  and  "  that  bishops  certify  one  another  of 
counterfeit  ministers."  *  The  reason  of  this  last  enactment 
was,  that  when  one  of  these  "  counterfeit  ministers"  was  de- 
tected in  one  diocese,  he  fled  into  another,  and  so  little  unity 
of  action«was  there,  or  can  there  ever  be,  in  a  prelatic  regi 
men,  (unlike  our  Church  courts)  that  the  same  course  of 
"  counterfeit  ministry"  mifjht  be  gone  throuo;h  in  succession 
in  all  the  dioceses  in  England. 

What  now,  we  repeat,  becomes  of  the  claim  to  the  apos- 
tolical succession,  so  confidently  and  offensively  put  forth 
by  ministers  pf  the  Church  of  England?  "Even  in  the 
memory  of  persons  living,"  says  archbishop  Whately,+ 
"  there  existed  a  bishop,  concerning  whom  there  was  so 
much  mystery  and  uncertainty  prevailing,  as  to  when,  and 
where,  and  by  whom  he  had  been  ordained,  that  doubts  ex- 
isted in  the  minds  of  many  persons  whether  he  had  ever 
been  ordained  at  all,"  .  .  .  and  Irom  the  circumstances  of  the 
case,  and  from  the  fact  that  such  doubts  did  prevail  in  the 
minds  of  well-informed  persons,  it  is  certain  "  that  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case  were  such  as  to  make  manifest  the 
possibilily  of  such  an  irregularity  occurring  under  such  cir- 
cumstances."   Such  an  irregularity,  then,  as  a  man  not  only 

*  Strype's  Grindal,  290.     One  of  these  was  e.  g.  summoned  be- 
fore the  convocation  of  1584.     Strype's  Whitgift,  i.  398. 
f  On  the  Kingdom  of  Christ,  p.  178. 

f2  6  65 


62  THE  ANGLICAN  REFORMATION. 

officiating  in  the  lower  grades  of  the  ministry,  but  even  rising 
to  the  primacy  of  the  Church  of  England,  without  ever  hav- 
ing been  in  orders,  or  rather  such  a  subversion  of  the  very 
first  elements  of  an  apostolical  constitution,  was  not  confined 
to  the  dark  and  troublous  period  of  the  Reformation,  when 
the  whole  framework  of  society  was  dissolved  into  its  first 
rudiments,  and  every  species  of  irregularity  not  only  might, 
but  as  we  know  did  occur,  but  the  very  same  "  unchurch- 
ing" irregularities  have  existed  in  the  Church  of  England 
down  through  every  age  of  its  history,  "  till  within  the  me- 
mory of  persons  now  living."  Any  one  who  will  look  at  a 
"  genealogical  tree,"  and  observe  how  many  wide  spreading 
and  far  distant  branches  may  spring  from  one  stem,  will 
easily  perceive  how  a  very  few  such  unordained  or  "  coun- 
terfeit ministers"  as  we  have  referred  to,  and  shown  to  have 
existed  in  the  Church  of  England,  were  amply  enough  to 
have  destroyed  all  apostolical  succession  in  the  kingdom. 
Such  withered  branches  could  not  transmit  any  portion  of 
the  "  sacred  deposit."  All  who  have  succeeded  to  them  are 
no  successors  of  the  apostles ;  and  we  challenge  any,  and 
every  minister  in  the  Church  of  England  to  prove  to  us  that 
he  has  not  received  all  the  orders  he  ever  possessed,  through 
some  of  these  Eleanor  Peads,  Lowths  of  Carlisle-side,  or 
Blackalls — a  glorious  parentage,  certainly,  of  wTiich  they 
have  great  reason  to  be  vain. 

We  have  not,  for  our  own  part,  been  very  much  addicted 
to  boast  of  our  ancestry,  albeit  it  contains  names  of  whose 
call  and  commission  from  Heaven  we  have  no  more  doubt 
than  we  have  of  those  of  the  apostle  Paul.  We  have  com- 
monly  found,  in  private  lite,  that  such  boasting  is  very  much 
a  characteristic  of  u\>s{ixn parvenus,  and  we  have  yet  to  learn 
that  it  is  greatly  different  in  regard  to  official  descent.  Should 
occasion,  however,  demand,  we  have  no  great  dislike  to  pay 
a  visit  to  the  Herald's  College,  and  demonstrate  to  our  South- 
ern neighbours  that  we  have  no  such  bar  sinister  in  ours  as 
defaces  their  clerical  escutcheon.  May  we  therefore  drop  a 
hint  to  certain  parties,  that,  however  they  may  do  it  in  pri- 
vate, where  no  one  may  mark  their  confusion,  they  should 
be  specially  chary  how,  in  public,  they  turn  up  any  ecclesi- 
astical "  Debrett."  Much  as  they  decry,  and  often  as  they 
twit  our  Wesleyan  friends,  he  must  have  a  peculiarly  con- 
stituted taste,  indeed,  who  would  not  prefer  even  genuine 
"  Brumagem  orders"  to  such  as  have  been  forged  by  such 
ghostly  progenitors  as  they  boast  of. 

We  had  purposed  to  show  multifarious  and  other  irregu- 
66 


THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  63 

larities  in  the  organization  of  the  Church  of  England.  We 
have,  however,  more  than  exhausted  our  present  space.  But 
should  God  grant  us  health  we  may  soon  return  to  the  sub- 
ject, for  we  can  assure  our  readers  we  have  only  broken 
ground,  and  simply  tested  the  range  and  capabilities  of  our 
ordnance.  It  is  assuredly  in  itself  no  grateful  task  to  rake 
up  the  errors  of  the  dead,  and  expose  the  defects  in  our 
neighbours'  ecclesiastical  constitution.  But  it  has  become 
necessary.  We  have  now  no  option.  The  Church  of  Eng- 
land has  now,  for  years,  unprovoked,  unresisted,  poured 
ujjon  us  such  torrents  of  abuse,  from  her  lordliest  prelates  to 
her  obscurest  curates, — she  has  vilified  all  we  held  sacred, 
insulted  all  we  held  dear,  and  we  must  either  tamely  submit 
to  see  our  beloved  Church  covered  with  infamy,  or  hurl 
back  the  foul  missiles  upon  the  aggressors. 

An  observation  or  two  in  conclusion.  We  have,  upon 
this  occasion,  confined  our  remarks  to  the  history  of  Eliza- 
beth's first  prelates.  The  second  set  became  much  less 
pious  and  Protestant,  and  consequently  we  have  selected  the 
period  most  favourable  to  the  Church  of  England.  This  is 
clearly  implied  in  a  passage  we  have  given  from  the  British 
Critic,  and  we  may  hereafter  prove  it,  should  any  call  it  in 
question.  Our  authorities  have  been  exclusively  from  Church 
of  England  writers  ;  not  certainly  because  we  deemed  them 
more  trustworthy  than  others,  for  no  man  of  any  pretensions 
to  candour  will  dispute,  as  Bishop  Short  has  remarked,*  that 
members  of  other  communions  cannot  be  supposed  to  be 
more  prejudiced  against  her  than  her  own  members  are  in 
her  favour.  We  have  selected  this  course,  because  we  have 
found  her  own  writers  establish  all  that  we  desire  in  order 
to  accomplish  our  end.  When  they  write  against  the  Church 
of  Scotland,  will  they  follow  our  example?  If  they  do,  it 
will  present  a  new  phasis  in  the  controversy.  Hitherto  they 
have  taken  as  their  aulhorities  works  written  by  non-jurors, 
and  Scottish  prelatic  sectaries,  the  most  unscrupulous  con- 
troversialists that  ever  disgraced  a  cause  that  had  little  indeed 
to  commend  it.  We  have  said  that  the  Church  of  England, 
in  every  thing  of  importance,  stands  now  precisely  where 
she  stood  at  the  demise  of  Elizabeth.  This  may  be  called 
in  question  by  those  who  know  not  the  facts  of  the  case. 
Wc  therefore  appeal  to  the  following  testimony  of  one  of  her 
living  prelates.   "  The  kingdom,"  says  Bishop  Short, f  "  has 

*  Sketch,  (fee.  sect.  419. 

f  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  2d  edit,  ppi 

67 


64  THE  ANGLICAN  REFORMATION. 

for  the  last  two  hundred  years,  been  making  rapid  strides  in 
every  species  of  improvement,  and  a  corresponding  altera- 
tion in  the  laws  on  every  subject  has  taken  place ;  during 
this  period  nothing  has  bee7i  remedied  in  the  church,''''  (the 
italics  are  ours.)  So  grievous  are  the  abuses  which  the 
anomalous  constitution  of  the  Anglican  church  has  entailed 
upon  her,  that  Dr.  Short  hesitates  not  to  say,  (with  his  usu- 
ally interjected  "  perhaps,"  whenever  he  gives  utterance  to 
an  unpalatable  sentiment)  that  "  the  temporal  advantages 
which  the  establishment  possesses,  are,  perhaps,  more  than 
counterbalanced  by  the  total  inability  of  the  church  to  regu- 
late any  thing  within  herself,  and  the  great  want  of  discip- 
line over  the  clergy  ;  ....  while  the  absurd  nature  of  our 
ecclesiastical  laws  renders  every  species  of  discipline  over 
the  laity  not  only  nugatory,  but  when  it  is  exercised,  fre- 
quently unchristian,  ridiculous,  and  in  many  cases  very 
oppressive,"  as  in  the  case  of  excommunication,  by  which  a 
man  is  deprived,  not  only  of  all  ecclesiastical  privileges,  but 
even  of  civil,  yea,  of  all  social  rights. 

Some  of  our  readers  may  be  inclined  to  ask,  if  all  these 
things  be  in  reality  so,  how  does  it  happen  that  good,  pious, 
enlightened  men  remain  in  the  communion  of  the  Church  of 
England  ?  Now  this  is  a  question  that  ought  not  to  be  asked, 
and  beincr  asked,  oufrht  not  to  be  answered.  We  iudsje  no 
man.  To  his  own  master  he  standeth  or  falleth.  We  can, 
however,  assign  one  reason,  which,  besides  the  all-powerful 
one  of  the  prejudices  of  education,  is  sufficient  to  account  to 
our  own  mind,  and  that  without  any  imputation  against  them, 
for  such  men  remaining  in  the  Anglican  church,  and  that 
is,  total  ignorance  of  her  character  and  constitution.  Let 
not  this  insinuation  startle  our  readers.  We  shall  prove  that 
such  ignorance  exists.  Dr.  Short,  in  the  preface  to  his  work, 
(p.  1,)  assigns  as  the  reason  that  led  him  to  commence  his 
history,  that  he  "  discovered  after  he  was  admitted  into  or- 
ders," and  when  engaged  as  tutor  in  his  college,  "  that  the 
knowledge  of  English  ecclesiastical  history  which  he  pos- 
sessed was  very  deficient He  was  distressed  that 

436 — 7.  Note.  This  is  a  work  which  we  recommend  to  our  readers. 
That  we  do  not  agree  with  Br.  Short  in  many  of  his  statements 
we  have  not  concealed.  But  we  should  do  him  injustice  if  we  did 
not  say,  that  although  his  work  is  brief,  too  brief,  and  not  free 
from  faults,  from  which  we  never  expect  to  see  a  history  of  the 
Church  of  England,  by  one  of  her  own  ministers,  altogether  ex- 
empt, still  it  is  incomparably  the  best  work  on  the  subject  which 
an  Anglican  clergyman  has  ever  produced. 
68 


THE  ANGLICAN  REFORMATION.  65 

his  knowledge  of  the  sects  among  the  philosophers  of  Athens 
was  greater  than  his  information  on  questions  which  affect 
the  Church  of  England."  Dr.  Short's  is  no  singular  case. 
The  ignorance  of  Anglican  ministers  upon  the  history  and 
constitution  of  their  own  church  would  astonish  our  readers. 
A  memorable  instance  of  this  has  recently  come  to  light  in 
this  city,*  and  we  allude  to  it  because  the  well-known  con- 
scientiousness and  high  character  of  the  party  concerned 
give  the  instance  all  the  greater  authority.  The  Rev.  D.  T. 
K.  Drummond,  for  whom  personally  we  entertain  the  very 
highest  respect,  has  shown,  in  one  of  his  recent  tracts,  that 
he  never,  till  within  the  last  few  days,  had  examined,  or  at 
least  understood,  the  canons  of  that  sect  of  which  he  was 
a  minister;  or  at  all  events,  that  he  was  ignorant  of  what  it 
regards  as  by  far  the  most  important  part  of  its  services, — 
the  communion  office.  Mr.  Drummond  was,  for  years,  a 
minister  in  that  body,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  a  shadow 
of  suspicion  ever  crossed  his  mind  that  its  constitution  con- 
tained any  thing  either  positively  erroneous,  or  sinfully  de- 
fective ;  indeed  his  character  is  a  sufficient  guaranty  that  no 
such  thought  ever  found  harbourage  in  his  breast,  for  had  he 
but  entertained  the  suspicion,  he  would  not  have  remained 
one  day  in  that  communion.  And  yet  in  the  constitution 
and  liturgical  offices  of  that  sect,  there  existed  all  the  while 
a  plague-spot  so  deadly,  that,  on  its  discovery,  Mr.  Drum- 
mond is  compelled,  as  he  values  his  own  soul,  to  come  out 
of  Babylon,  that  he  be  not  a  partaker  of  her  sins  and  punish- 
ment. Such  will  also  be  the  result  to  which  pious  ministers 
in  the  Church  of  England  will  be  brought,  should  they 
ever  unprejudicedly  and  dispassionately  examine  her  consti- 
tution. And  should  Mr.  Drummond,  as  we  doubt  not  he 
will,  continue  his  investigations  in  the  spirit  in  which  he  has 
commenced  them,  we  shall  be  astonished,  indeed,  if  his  love 
of  truth,  and  of  Him  who  is  the  truth,  does  not  lead  him  to 
renounce  all  communion  with  the  Church  of  England,  as  he 
has  already  done  with  the  Scottish  prelatic  sectaries.  A 
sifting  time  is  at  hand  ;  and  when  the  breath  of  the  living 
God  has  blown  over  the  thrashing  floor  of  the  Church,  we 
confidently  anticipate  that  only  the  chaff  shall  remain  in  the 
Church  of  England. 

*  Edinburgh. 

THE  END. 

Stereotyped  by  S.  DOUGLAS  WTTETH,  No  7  Pear  St.,  Philadelpm*. 

6*  69 


DATE  DUE 

^ 0Tt 

1 

CAYLORD 

PRINTED  INU.S.A. 

N^  JKI 


BW5117.A58 

The  Anglican  reformation,  or.  The  Church 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library  J 


1    1012  00042  2859 


